Mr Monk and the Monks
by Bob Wright
Summary: Monk is summoned to solve a murder at a monastery. What he finds there, however, might be too big to handle. NOW COMPLETED.
1. Chapter 1

MR. MONK AND THE MONKS

BY

BOB WRIGHT

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I finally got the basic idea for this down. It will probably be shorter than previous stories, but I think I've got a basic enough kernel to work with. Again, best to keep track of my continuity so you know where I'm coming from.

Adrian Monk and all related characters and indicia are registered trademarks of USA Network, Mandeville Films and Touchstone Television. And now, sit back and enjoy the story.

* * *

...when we return to Incredibly Stupid Celebrity Stunts, Rob Schneider lights himself on fire and drives this motorcycle at a hundred and fifty miles and hour into this solid brick wall," the announcer on Adrian Monk's television proclaimed grandly, "And then, Jessica Simpson throws herself into an alligator-infested swamp. Don't miss it!"

Adrian, however, could very much miss it. He bent down from atop his sofa and hit the off switch. It seemed increasingly that there was very little good on television anymore.

He picked up the nozzle of his vacuum and returned to vacuuming his ceiling. The clattering of heavy raindrops against his window could still be heard over the suction. It had been raining solid for the last two days now. But that had mattered little to Adrian, for he hadn't been out at all. Indeed, he had little reason to; very few cases had come his way over the last few months, and most of his inner circle had been away for most of the week--his assistant had caught a vacation flight to Alaska without telling him (although since he was used to this by now it wasn't a shocker), Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher were down in Sacaramento being honored for their work in the line of duty, and his psychiatrist was at a convention in Santa Fe. So for the first time in many years, he'd found himself utterly and completely alone.

Except of course for the protesters parked out front of the building for the last few weeks. Much as he'd feared for so long, there had been many fans of his series who had not taken well to Natalie becoming his assistant so abruptly. Unaware that there was a gap of three years between what was happening to him now and what was happening on the air, he'd been bombarded by picketers demanding he bring Sharona back immediately, apparently not concerned that there was no way he could and that he no longer wanted to if he could have. While they had started thinning out over the last week or so as the inevitable had become apparent, a dozen or so diehards were still camping out front despite the landlord's threats to have them hauled off by force, and Adrian had been unable to get a decent night's sleep for a while, particularly when several of the extremists had taken to banging on his door at three in the morning. He was now starting to wish Natalie had invited him to go with her so he could get away from the whole mess.

His work for now done, he shut off the vacuum and plopped down on the sofa. His gaze fell on the nearest portrait of his wife hanging on the wall. He sighed sadly. Adding to the misery of feeling alone was the fact that Trudy's birthday would be at the end of the week. He'd always pulled into a shell during that time, and every year without her was more excruciating that the one before. At least, however, this year he could rest easily knowing the six-fingered man had finally paid the price for his crime against her, even if it had not quite been the way Adrian had hoped it would be. Now that he had new information about who had hired him, he'd eagerly sent it out to his new contacts at the FBI and CIA in the hopes they'd have something on "the Judge." Nobody seemed to know anything, however, and the old feeling of being stuck in a rut with the only case that really mattered was kicking in again, making him even more depressed.

There came a knocking at his door. "Adrian, got your wipes," came the familiar voice of Kevin Dorfman. Adrian strode over to the peephole and glanced out to make sure his neighbor didn't have an irate protester with him before opening the door. "Were, were you followed?" he asked.

"Let's see," Kevin assumed a thoughtful expression, "When I came up a middle-aged womanon the stoop begged me to make you reconsider everything; before that, a homeless man on the corner of 5th and 12th told me to tell you he thought you were crazy to let her go without a fight; before THAT, the guard at the store told me he probably wasn't going to watch your show anymore because it wouldn't be any fun, but his partner countered that Natalie fit you quite well; before THAT, I got a call from my aunt asking what the whole story was; before THAT..."

"I, I get the point, you weren't followed," Adrian cut him off. He pulled out the ten bags of wipes in the bag Kevin had brought and weighed each of them in his hands. "No good," he announced, "This one contains a deformed wipe. You'll, you'll have to take it back."

"You sure?"

"I think it only common courtesy," the detective pushed the wipes back into the bag, "But again, thank you for agreeing to do this for me; I, I don't know if I could manage at the moment with everything."

"Well isn't that was neighbors are for?" Kevin gave him an overly eager pat on the back, making Adrian wince, "You know, Adrian, this does remind me of the time my second cousin got stricken with a bad case of the mumps (he apparently did not notice the horrified look on Adrian's face as he said this). We started to suspect he was playing out the illness longer than..."

Perhaps mercifully, there came another knocking on the door. Adrian, however, was anything but pleased. "When will it ever stop?" he groaned out loud. "Look, I had no control over it!" he shouted at the door, "She left right in the middle of the night, I didn't know until that morning, and I couldn't...!"

"Mr. Monk, if I could have a minute of your time please," came an older voice from the hallway. Adrian hesitantly opened the door to reveal a priest standing in the hallway, silver haired and with a metal cane. And completely sopping wet. "Mr. Monk, I'm..." he started forward.

"WAIT, WAIT, WAIT!" Adrian waved for him to halt. There was no way he was risking rain water and mud on his carpet. He dashed into the kitchen and grabbed several boxes of his industrial plastic. "Here," he tossed several to Kevin, "You start by the window and meet me in the middle."

Kevin shrugged but eagerly joined his neighbor in tearing off the plastic and laying it on the floor. Within five minutes, every surface in the apartment was covered with plastic. "All, all right, you can come in now," Adrian gestured at the priest once they had finished. The priest glanced slowly around the now sterilized room, but merely shrugged and walked in. "Mr. Monk, I'm Father Bernard Fitzwater," he announced, shaking Adrian's hand.

"Father, good day, I'm Adrian, this is Na--" Adrian instinctively gestured to his right before realizing that Natalie was not there--and that he had no wipes handy. He waved desperately at Kevin to give him one. "So, what brings you here, Father?" he asked, wiping himself down.

"Mr. Monk, if you're not too busy at the moment, I have something that may be of interest to you," Father Fitzwater told him, "I'm the vicar at the St. George Monastery in Alameda..."

"I've heard of that one," Kevin proclaimed, "On the island by the old naval station, right?"

"Indeed it is," Father Fitzwater nodded, "Over the last week, two of the monks there were killed. The authorities are convinced it was a simple set of heart attacks, but I have reason to suspect it may have been murder. Both of them were in fine physical shape up till the point they died. No one seems to think the word of a vicar means much, however. So I was wondering if I could hire your services to look into the matter."

"Um..." Adrian thought it over carefully, "Here's, here's the thing, Father; well one of a couple of things. First, uh, you said you were on an island, I, I really don't do well traveling over water. Second, you do know how cramped monasteries are; germs could spread there faster than you can imagine. Third, it's, it's my wife's birthday later in the week, I really need to be here."

"Oh," the priest mumbled, "How old is she?"

"She, she would have been forty-six," Adrian's expression tumbled, "She died, eleven years ago."

"I'm most sorry," Father Fitzwater shook his head, "Indeed, I do remember reading about that in the papers when it happened. That aside, Mr. Monk, I also believe that what happened to the monks might have been more than what they seemed; lately I've been hearing strange noises at night, banging and drilling of some kind that don't happen naturally in the years I've been vicar. I'd be willing to pay you hansomely for it."

"You would?" Adrian inquired, "I'm...my assistant...associate, she'd be falling head over heels for that if she were here. I'm, I'm not sure I should take it without her, she'd be...she'd want to be..."

"Go on Adrian, give it a shot," Kevin encouraged him, "I think Natalie would want you to take the risks without her for once. And at least you'll be away from all those protesters you don't like."

There came at that moment a thumping sound against the walls. Adrian rolled his eyes; two or three of the most extreme protesters had taken to throwing pebbles at the window over the last week. "The monks at your monastery, they don't have time for television, do they?" he asked Father Fitzwater.

"We have no modern ammenities like that," the priest shook his head, "I do get a newspaper every day, but they don't. I doubt any of them would even know who you are."

"Good enough for me," Adrian nodded. By now any break from the protesters would be up his alley. "I'll, I'll just pack a few things, and we'll, we'll go see what happened to your monks."


	2. Chapter 2

"I think we're drifting, we're definitely drifting too far south," Adrian started mumbling loudly. His hand clutched the handle of the passenger door to Father Fitzwater's 1988 Probe almost too tightly; he wasn't really comfortable taking the ferry over to the island the monastery was on, "We're going to drift out to sea, I know it, we'd better go back."

"I don't think there's any danger of that, Mr. Monk," Father Fitzwater reassured him, "I've seen the currents far worse than this. And the pilot's been handling the ferry since I was named vicar eight years ago; I would trust his judgment."

"Then why was he so adamant about the weight limit?" Adrian had to know. The ferry pilot had forced him to leave behind almost half his provisions on the dock on the argument that the boat could not handle all of them at once. "He should know it's a cardinal sin--if I might say so--to deprive a man of radiation suits and...hold on to the wheel!"

He flinched noticeably when Father Fitzwater subconsciously removed one hand from the wheel. The priest calmly took hold of it again. Adrian breathed in relief. "So, when did the murders take place?" he inquired, eager to divert his attention from the fact they were floating over the bay.

"It was about two weeks ago that Brother Clement was found dead in his cell," Father Fitzwater related, "At the time nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but something in the back of my mind told me there was something amiss. Barely five days later, Brother Pius was dead too, and I knew it couldn't be a coincidence."

"Did you try to interrogate the other monks to see if they knew anything?"

"That wouldn't have done any good," the priest shook his head, "You see, our order takes a voluntary vow of silence. Some of them haven't said a word for ten years or more, and nothing could make them break that vow. Here we are now."

There was a low thump as the ferry touched against the island's landing. Adrian leaned back in his seat in relief once they'd eased back onto dry land. "Did any of them have a clear motive in wanting to kill the victims?" he asked.

"If so, they kept it to themselves," Father Fitzwater admitted, "And it's not easy trying to judge people when they say nothing that might give away their guilt. Mostly when we're not eating or at prayers, they meditate in their cells, and I certainly haven't bothered them in the middle of that."

"And you're certain it couldn't have been an outsider?"

"Impossible. The ferry shuts down at dusk each night, and it's the only way on or off the island. If anyone had sneaked in, we would have noticed; there's nowhere for someone to hide here."

The car pulled up alongside a long, low adobe building surrounded by several tall trees. Indeed, Adrian felt no one would have noticed the monastery was there if they knew nothing about its existence in the first place. He hunched up as he got out to avoid getting too wet from the rain and began unloading his suitcases from the back seat--which they almost completely filled up. "And you have tried to tell the authorities your suspicions, and they haven't believed you?" he inquired, handing Father Fitzwater a couple of suitcases containing several pounds of soap.

"I've tried every avenue in the area," Father Fitzwater staggered under the weight of the suitcases and almost fell, "The district attorney, the local sheriff, even the archdiocese, and every one of them found there was insufficent proof of foul play. So having read of your exploits in the paper, I decided hiring you would be worth a try. My office is over this way, you can bring these in here."

He pushed open the door to a small room that nonetheless felt cramped. Mountains of papers lined Father Fitzwater's desk, and dozens of books sat on the large shelf against the far wall, none of them even remotely color coordinated. Adrian immediately took hold of the papers and tamped them down into an even pile, then scuttled over to the bookcase and started rearranging them. "G.K. Chesterton?" he read the spine of the one he was holding, "So you read mystery stories regularly?"

"I'll admit it has been a certain fondness of mine," Father Fitzwater dropped Adrian's suitcases on the floor, breathing heavily, "Perhaps, unfortunately, that has factored into everyone's decision not to believe me, that they think I see mysteries everywhere I look."

"I see," Adrian switched the book around with one that was similar to it in size. He next walked over to the wall and straightened out the cross hanging there. His gaze fell on the picture on the wall. "So you played football when you were younger?" he asked.

"For my first two years of high school," Father Fitzwater reminisced, "I made all state my sophomore year as a linebacker; I dreamed of playing professionally up the road in Green Bay. Then unfortunately the first game of the junior season I tore out my leg. That ruined everything, although I had trouble facing the reality I would never play professionally for years. Luckily, God found me, and it's been a rewarding career that I'd never thought I'd have."

"I...to, to be honest, I...I haven't really believed in God for years," Adrian slowly conceded, "Now, before you get upset, I, I'd just say my background, it wasn't really conducive to belief in a higher being. After all, if there was a God, my father wouldn't have driven off for Chinese and never come back, and my wife would...I'd be celebrating her birthday with her here..."

He slumped his head slowly against the wall. "Well you do realize you can't blame God for all that befalls us," Father Fitzwater told him, "Sometimes it is necessary for us to go through a certain amount of suffering whether we wish to or not, and he cannot control all of it."

"But why so much suffering?" Adrian had to know, "Why does there have to be so much pain out there? You do know it's, it's a lot harder to believe when nothing you do seems to make a difference for any lasting good. Recently, for instance, I've been wondering a lot whether I make any difference in this city, that no matter how many cases I solve, there's always more people out on the streets ready to butcher other people. Whether I should really look elsewhere for some sense of fulfillment. You do realize what I'm saying, right?"

"Of course I understand," Father Fitzwater nodded, "We all go through crises of faith at one point or another, Mr. Monk. It's a natural part of human existence. But you'll find the answers in due time, and maybe, you'll also find something more if you look closely enough."

Adrian nodded slowly. "Well, now that we've gotten that out of the way, where exactly were the dead monks found?" he asked, not really wanting to get into a prolonged existential debate at the moment.

"Right in their cells. Follow me if you will," Father Fitzwater opened another door on the other side of the office, "The monks are out tending to the monastery garden, so they won't be in the way."

"They're tending the garden in this weather?" Adrian grimaced at how big a risk of getting a cold the monks were taking.

"We're a dedicated order that works hard at all we do," his assoicate rationalized. He led the detective down a long hall with heavy wooden doors along the sides. "Right here, next to each other," he stopped and pointed to two doors on the right side, "Nobody's been inside since it happened, so everything's as it was the moment they died."

He opened the doors to the cells. Adrian started in, then stopped and stepped backwards; the cell looked far too claustrophobic for his tastes. He walked slowly from side to side, making his familiar oblique hand gestures every now and then. "Which way were they facing when they fell down?" he asked after five minutes of this.

"Both of them were face down facing the window," Father Fitzwater told him, "That's not all that surprising; most of the monks pray towards the window at night in the first place. But I still thought something was odd about it."

"And you were right," Adrian nodded knowingly, "Look at the bedsheets, they're rumpled deeply," he pointed, "If it had been a simple case of heart attacks, they would have fallen straight down on the floor and the bedsheets would have been untouched. They thrashed around before they hit the floor. You were right; we've got a double homicide here."

"I thought so," Father Fitzwater nodded, looking satisfied at being vindicated, "How were they killed, then?"

"I'm still not entirely sure," Adrian told him, "But I think it's good I brought everything. It looks like I'm going to having to become a monk."


	3. Chapter 3

"I think this one's about two inches too short," Adrian fussed, pulling at the sleeves of the monk's robe Father Fitzwater had obtained for him.

"It's the only one we had in stock," the priest informed him, "We don't exactly have a flow of new recruits coming in here."

"I see," Adrian undid the rope around his waist and retied it, then retied it yet again when the two ends were clearly not even with each other, "I don't know how any of the monks can put up with this year after year."

The door to the dining room opened up, and about half a dozen monks shuffled slowly in, all sopping wet. "Ah, brothers in Christ," Father Fitzwater greeted them, "It is my honor to announce we have a new member joining our congregation. Allow me to introduce Brother Adrian."

"Yes, uh, hello, I'm, I'm Brother Adrian, from the, um, Monastery of, uh, Our Blessed Mother Destroyer of Germs," Adrian rambled out, "And this is Nat--" he sighed when he realized he'd done it again. It was still going to take a while to get used to doing a case completely on his own. "Nev, Never mind," he said quickly, "Uh, I, I come from a place where silence is not a, uh, prerequisite, so, um, I'll have some time to get used to your customs."

He undid the rope again and held the ends right in his fists to make sure they were even. The other monks stared at each other with raised eyebrows. "And he's certainly welcome here as long as it will take," Father Fitzwater covered for him, "My I introduce Brother Xavier, Brother Charles, Brother Rufus, Brother Thomas, Brother Nathaniel, and Brother Florian."

"Pleasure," Adrian bowed to each of them--he certainly wasn't going to shake hands with people he'd never met before--prompting more raising of eyebrows among the monks. "And now, it is time for our evening meal," Father Fitzwater stepped over to the head of the dining room table, "Let us bow our heads and give thanks for the meal before us."

Adrian took his place on the long wooden bench between Brother Xavier and Brother Rufus and bowed his head. His eyes took note of the simple meal of a slice of bread and slice of tomato set on the plate before him (the other monks had fish to eat as well, but Adrian had made it perfectly clear to the vicar that he would not eat fish given the amount of toxins dumped into the bay each day. He had also needed reassurances from Father Fitzwater that the well water the monastery used was completely pure, his Sierra Springs having been left behind on the dock.). "Amen," he softly whispered and turned to his meal--then realized he'd overlooked one rather simple convenience he took for granted most of the time. "Excuse me, utensils?" he tapped Brother Rufus on the shoulder, "You don't happen to have utensils here? I always eat with utensils where I come from."

Brother Rufus shook his head and held up his hand. Adrian sighed. He hated having to eat something without utensils, but if it helped the cover, he supposed it was worth it. He gently trapped the tomato slice between his middle and index finger and took a small nibble. "When, when I signed up," he whispered to Brother Xavier, trying not to look at him as he downed his allottment of fish rather slobbishly, "They told me there were openings because two other members of your group had left. What, what were they like exactly? Did they cause any trouble?"

Brother Xavier silently shook his head and offered him a greasy handful of fish. "Uh, no, no thank you, I'm, I'm on a fish fast of sorts," Adrian said quickly. He noticed a potential crisis further down the table. "Um, Brother, Brother Florian, you, you can't have it touching," he pronounced, rising up and sauntering over, stopping to fiddle with the rope yet again, "Sorry, but in my old place of, uh, worship, it was a sin to have your food touching," he seperated Brother Florian's fish and bread, "It, it was a carnal sin, they said, we'd be struck down by the Lord if we didn't comply...let me get that for you, Brother Charles."

He seperated Brother Charles's food as well. The monks all stared at him increduously. "You'll, you'll thank me later," Adrian told them, retying the rope still another time as he sat back down. "Brothers Clement and Pius, they hadn't been doing anything unusual before they died?" he asked anyone who cared to answer, "I'm asking, since the deacon at my old parish heard and wanted to know if, um...sin had overcome them. Had it, would you know?"

The monks did not answer and stared unilaterally at the table. Brother Rufus broke the gridlock first and dipped the chalice by his seat into the cistern of water at the end of the table. He handed it to Adrian. "Um, thank, thank you but not thank you, I, I, it's parish customs, never, never drink from the same glass as a fellow brother," Adrian mumbled, glancing around for a spare chalice or cup of some kind. Unfortunately, none seemed to be about. Brother Rufus held up the chalice to his face and gave him a stern glance. "OK, OK, but give me a minute," Adrian sighed, digging around under his robes for wipes. To the amazement of the monks, he scrubbed the rim of the chalice clean for a good three minutes before nodding in agreement and cautiously taking a sip...

...and immediately spit the water back up. It was the fouling tasting thing that had ever crossed his lips. "Mother Lord alimghty, you call this holy water!!" he shrieked at the entire assembly, dropping the chalice to the floor and leaping up in the air in revulsion, "What do you put in this stuff! You need your well examined!"

Frowning, Brother Rufus grabbed the chalice, dipped it in the cistern, and took a swig himself...and immediately spit it out like Adrian had and started choking loudly. The other monks at the table rose, concerned now as well. "Allow me through please, allow me through," Father Fitzwater bustled down to the cistern. He sniffed at it and frowned deeply. "Brothers, I'm afraid we shall have to cut tonight's meal short," he informed the monks, "And we will need to check the well tomorrow when we attend to the garden. In the meantime, let us retire to our cells and begin meditating in advance of vespers at seven."

The monks slowly shuffled out the door towards their cells. Adrian hung behind until they were all gone. "I thought you said that well water was unspoiled by humanity!?" he hissed at Father Fitzwater.

"It was," the priest frowned, staring at the water, which upon closer inspection seemed a little darker than usual but could probably still pass for drinking water in the San Francisco area, "We've never had any problems with this until just now. Do you think someone poisoned it to kill more of the monks?"

"It doesn't appear to be any poison," Adrian examined the water himself, making sure to keep his head far away from it, "Some kind of oily substance. You wouldn't have any idea how it got in there?"

"No one can touch the well during periods we're not using it; we put a cover with a big lock on over it," Father Fitzwater told him, "Meanwhile, did you figure anything out about who the killer might be?"

"You were right; these guys know how to make themselves stone figures," Adrian shook his head, "I've been seeing little clues in people's behaviors for years, and I got nothing off them. This may take some time."

"Well, I hope you can find it out soon, before more things like this happen," Father Fitzwater shook his head, "In the meantime, you might as well go to your cell so you don't look too suspicious..."

He paused, as if he'd just stopped himself from saying something about how suspicious Adrian had already made himself look that evening. "Uh, one more thing about the cell," Adrian commented, "It's, it's fifteen by eleven feet. You're absolutely sure you can't get a contractor in here tonight to make it ten by ten for me, just so I can sleep soundly at night?"

The vicar shook his head. "Just a thought," Adrian shrugged, "I, uh, guess I'll see you in an hour or so for vespers, then."

He trudged out the door and up the hall to his cell, which had previously been Brother Clement's. He and Father Fitzwater had checked over the room solidly to make sure no evidence would have been tampered with by his moving in; fortunately, none could be found. Adrian did have reservations about spending long time in a claustrophobic room, and thus had vowed to himself to leave the door at least partially open at all times.

He fiddled with the rope yet again before plopping down in his chair by the cell's window. He scanned around the room for anything he could have missed when he'd looked over it the first time. The walls floor and ceiling were all solid concrete, and the door was thick oak and had been locked when Brother Clement had died. There was no way the killer could have gotten into the cell without leaving a mark behind as far as Adrian could see. The only possibility was a small iron grating opening by the bottom of the bed, but it was solidly locked in place, and the opening was too small for a human hand to go through. Much as he hated to admit it, Adrian had no idea how the murders had been pulled off at the moment.

His gaze fell out the window. The rain had stopped an hour or so earlier, and a brilliant sunset was visible over the Bay. Somehow, Adrian had the feeling of the presence of something greater than himself in the sunset. "Um, are, uh, are you out there, uh, God?" he spoke softly into the evening sky, "It's me, um, Adrian, Adrian Monk. I, uh, know I haven't really talked in a while, since you really haven't seemed to given me much reason to, but, um, if, if you are out there, and you're, uh, listening, if, if I could have a sign that, you know, you're there and you care, that things are going to be all right for me in the end?"

Suddenly he heard a soft swishing sound from the doorway. He turned around and noticed a slip of paper inside the crack underneath it. With a frown he strode towards the door and threw it open, but whoever had left the paper had already disappeared. Adrian bent down and trapped it between his wrists and gently carried it over to his bed. He took off the pillowcase and put that over his hand before taking hold of the paper and holding it up to the soft sunset light streaming in through the window. His eyes widened as he read the words on it:

ADRIAN MONK,

MUST TALK TOMORROW NIGHT BEHIND CHAPEL

I KNOW WHO KILLED YOUR WIFE


	4. Chapter 4

The paper slipped from Adrian's fingers. So many years, so many false leads, and now one just seemed to have fallen into his lap. He rushed back to the window. "If, if this is you, and this is right, thank, thank you so much, and let me say, thank you for working quicker than usual too," he said up at the sky. He walked back to the hall again and looked around for any clue of who might have put the paper there. Everyone's doors were closed, however, and given how slowly Father Fitzwater walked, Adrian doubted in could have been him. Unless there was more to the vicar than met the eye.

There came a ringing of the monastery bell from the refrectory: time for vespers. Adrian picked up the paper and shoved it under his robe. No point in letting anyone else know about it at the moment. He waited until the monks had shuffled past his cell before falling into line after them, wishing he could ask them now who had left the note and what they knew that he didn't. But at least, he figured, that question would be answered soon enough.

* * *

The sun was shining brightly the next afternoon, warmer than it had in several months. Adrian took this as a good omen, that things were looking up for him from now on. He was too wound up from what he'd learned to sleep much, which did come in handy, as he was able to rise an hour and a half before the other monks got up and get his cleaning equipment from Father Fitzwater's office and give the chapel a thorough cleaning down. He did, though, come to realize when the monks all slipped on the well polished floor and fell on their backs, that perhaps he'd done TOO thorough a job for once.

He got through morning prayers and lunch without much problems, and was quite glad that the monastery operated on a fixed, rigid schedule every day, just the way he liked it. His smile faded a bit, however, when he followed the other monks out into the garden around two to care for the crops; gardening had never been his cup of tea. "You, you all do wear protective gear when you do this?" he whispered to Brother Nathaniel, "There, there are so many ways we wouldn't come out of this alive."

Brother Nathaniel stared at him and shook his head. The garden was about twenty feet by ten feet, which was largely acceptable to Adrian's standards. Unfortunately, there were thirteen rows of plants, and in some of them different crops were intermingling. Adrian bustled over to one row that contained only tomatoes; he didn't think he'd be able to handle a mixed plot job. He squatted down, being very careful not to have his knees touch the dirt, and slowly counted the tomatoes on each vine. The first three vines had thirteen, eleven, and seven respectively. Adrian gently pulled several of the tomatoes off the first two vines. He dug through his pockets for some glue and squeezed a very small drop onto the top of one tomato's stem. He was affixing it to the third vine when a shadow fell over him. "Oh, uh, they're, they're not even," he explained to an absolutely confused Brother Xavier, "I'm, I'm fixing in so there's ten on each vine. Want to give me a hand?"

He extended to the glue to Brother Xavier, who pushed it aside and handed the detective a shovel. "Uh, here's, here's the thing, I, I don't really shovel that well, it's, it's really too dirty a job," Adrian protested, "If, if you'd like to lend..."

Brother Xavier stormed off to the cucumbers, clearing mouthing to himself several unpleasant words. Adrian shrugged and ever so gently tapped the very tip of the shovel into the dirt. He gently pushed a miniscule amount of soil closer to the vines, then stepped a few paces down the row and repeated the proceedure on the next vine. He noticed at this point Brother Florian was staring agape at him at the potatoes in the next row down. "It's, it's how they used to do it where I came from," he explained slowly, "Other, Otherwise God struck you down very, very, very painfully. What are you doing with them!?"

He jumped over the tomatoes, just barely missing landing in a patch of them and rushed to Brother Florian's wheelbarrow. "Let, let me take a closer look at this for you," he offered, digging out a pair of wipes and using them to pick up each potato in the wheelbarrow in turn. "No, this one isn't a perfect oval, can't use it," he declared after examining the first one, placing it on the ground, "Neither is this one...or this one...or this one...this one has a blemish there...this one's got an odd number of eyes...this one's got something growing here, I don't know what it is and don't want to know..."

The potatoes kept piling up on the ground until Adrian had rejected every single one of them. "You're, you're lucky I caught all this now," he told a fuming Brother Florian, "This could have been a serious health risk. I'll, I'll go get some bags and we can bury them outside the monastery where no one can...why are you looking at me like that?"

With open frustration in his eyes, Brother Florian seized a nearby hoe and raised it up in the air. Adrian didn't need a second hint. He took off running as fast as he could, easing to a stop only when he glanced back to see Brother Florian wasn't following him. He leaned against the side of the monastery's main building, gasping for breaths...

...when suddenly the ground underneath him gave way, sending him sliding onto a hard stone surface. Rubbing his aching rear, he glanced around to see he'd slid into an underground cavern--nothing exceptionally large, but certainly big enough for a man to move through comfortably. Adrian supposed the heavy rain over the last few days had weakened the ground to the point where it would collapse under anyone's weight. He squinted into the darkness of the cavern and was somewhat amazed that very faint points of light could be seen down the tunnel at regular intervals. Adrian knew what that meant: the tunnel ran right underneath the cells, under the floor grating. Whoever the killer had been had probably known about the tunnel and utilized it. Although, it still did little to explain how they'd killed Brother Clement and Brother Pius, and Adrian certainly wasn't going to walk down a dark tunnel to find out--especially one, he now noticed, that smelled exactly like the water last night had been. He had a feeling he knew what it was, but he couldn't quite put his finger on the substance.

He'd lost track of his surroundings and jumped, startled, when footsteps could be heard above. "Oh, uh, yeah, get, get a rope or something, quick," he called to Brothers Rufus and Thomas, standing over the hole. The two of them exchanged glances, and Brother Thomas visibly shook his head. Brother Rufus shrugged and clearly mouthed, "_We can't just leave him down there; we have our vows to help the needy."_ (to which, Adrian noticed, Brother Thomas mouthed back, "_I think I lied about that."),_ and the two of them ducked out of sight. Adrian shivered in the cold, disappointed to be leaving the scene of the crime so quickly, but knowing he could probably find out more once he got proper lighting and found the cavern's entrance.

* * *

The rest of the day could not have gone fast enough for Adrian. He found himself repeatedly glancing at the windows at the sun, waiting for it to set and the information he wanted about Trudy to be all his. Several of his associates seemed to notice this anxiety in him, and Adrian couldn't help shake the feeling their eyes were X-raying him. Did they know more than they seemed to let on, he wondered? And nagging doubts were gnawing at him whether this would be legitimate information--too many others had proven errant upon closer inspection. He couldn't bear to be disappointed again.

He managed to keep a calmer demeanor through dinner this time and was silent during vespers even though on the inside he was as nervous as he'd ever been. Finally, the sun set several minutes into his evening meditations. Adrian waited until it was completely dark before he slipped quietly out of his cell and crept down the hall. There was no other sign of life in the monastery, as the other monks were busy with their own meditation, and the only sound outside were the chirping of the island's crickets. Adrian hustled behind the chapel and glanced around. No one seemed to be present. "Are you here?" he whispered loudly.

"Over here," came a soft hiss. Adrian turned to see a silhouette appear from behind the nearest oak and sneak towards him. "Brother Charles," Adrian recognized his features when he got closer.

"Shhhh," Brother Charles held up his finger, "Were you followed?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Adrian turned around to check. There was no human presence around as far as he could see. "All right then," he said solemnly, "What do you know about Trudy?"

"Before I joined the order, I was stationed at the naval base," Brother Charles gestured across the bay at the now-abandoned facility, "The man who killed your wife was stationed there. He was running a covert paramilitary group that was operating in the Bay Area. They were planning a major terrorist attack on every major West Coast city."

"Caucasian Provinces?" Adrian asked, familiar with the militant white supremicist group who had tried to commit numerous terrorist attacks in recent years.

"Bigger than Caucasian Provinces," his informant shook his head, "This plot involved a dirty bomb in every major city from Seattle to San Diego. This guy took pleasure in calling himself 'The Judge,' since he felt he was passing judgment on the population for their perceived crimes in the running of the country. Plus it was his code name inside the group. Your wife, she was just about to blow the lid off the whole thing. So he had to get rid of her."

He jumped a bit and ducked down as the roar of a boat engine going very fast nearby filled the air. It died out as quickly as it had started, however. Brother Charles breathed a sigh of relief. "Sorry, but you never know, they might still be out there and..." he apologized.

"You were saying!?" Adrian hastily interrupted him, desperate for more information.

"Right. He didn't want to risk a direct attack on her," Brother Charles continued, "He needed an outside person who could handle it while he went about business as usual and could take the fall for him if need be. That's where Frank Nunn came in. His third in command had worked with Nunn on several hits in the Southwest and suggested him. This guy met Nunn in a bar in downtown Alameda while he was on leave for the weekend and offered him half a million to set something up; I had gone in there as well and overheard it, but he cornered me and threatened to set me up in his place if I squealed. To my eternal regret, I kept silent. Nunn then decided to protect himself in case of a double cross and looked for someone who could take the fall for _him_. That was Warwick Tennyson, who'd done some bomb work in the area and was independent enough so people might think he'd acted alone. Nunn met Tennyson in the parking garage your wife was killed in and gave him two thousand dollars to do the job for him; he figured there was no point in shelling out as much as he'd been given to somebody who was below him in the plot and a nobody anyway. From what I've heard, Nunn also tried to get a backup for Tennyson in case he botched it, so he called up some guy who owed him money and forced him into it, I can't remember his name, he wasn't that important..."

"His name was Trevor Fleming, I know, he told me with his own lips; he'd gone to school with Tennyson; Nunn told him he'd kill him if he didn't cooperate," Adrian started nodding with increased vigor; everything he was being told fit with what he knew, "He's, he's dead now, he killed himself last Christmas. I, I should tell you, though, he was sorry he did it, he really was, and I forgive him now, much as I never thought I would. Go on."

"After I learned they'd gotten your wife, I was sick with guilt," Brother Charles told him, "So I joined this monastery to try and ease the pain. Before I went in, though, I heard the Judge on the phone with Nunn, telling him to meet him in Brazil so he could pay him off. Now whether he ever did give..."

"The name," Adrian said impatiently, "The Judge, do you have a name for me!?"

"His..." Brother Charles started to say, but suddenly jerked about as a rattle of bullets rang out. With a loud groan he keeled forward right into Adrian's lap. "No, no, no, don't you dare do this!" Adrian screamed at him, pushing him away to keep the blood off his robe. He rushed to the edge of the rocks. A speedboat was rushing away from the island, and it was too dark to make out who was driving it. "GET BACK HERE!!" Adrian bellowed after it. He howled to the sky in a mixture of deep frustration and carnal rage...

...before being brought back to earth by the sound of Brother Charles moaning. His heart leaped; he could still get the Judge's identity before it was too late. He rushed back over to the monk and rolled him over onto his chest with his foot, "Quick, his name, tell me the Judge's name!" he commanded.

"His...his...his..." Brother Charles sputtered desperately.

"SPIT IT OUT!!" Adrian roared in his face.

"His name..." his informant gasped, "His name was Mitch Teeger."


	5. Chapter 5

Adrian found himself stumbling backwards, the feeling rapidly draining from his legs. Reality was swirling in circles around him. "It's not true," he found himself mumbling loudly, "It's not true!"

"It is true," Brother Charles wretched, his voice fading, "Mitch Teeger killed your wife. That plane crash in Kosovo was deliberate; he knew..." he seized up and coughed loudly, "He knew they'd be on to him and took the easy way out to avoid prosecution."

"LIAR!!" Adrian grabbed him roughly by the collar and shook him harshly, "TELL ME THE REAL TRUTH!!"

"You don't believe me?" Brother Charles gasped hard, "Ask his wife. He used...he used...he used her money to support the extremists' activities. She knew it. Ask...ask her..."

With one final gasp, he slumped to the ground. Adrian let go of him in a flash. He found himself stepping backwards without realizing where he was going. And that he was shaking all over like a leaf. He was thus initially unaware of the pounding of footsteps behind him and jumped when he'd heard a stone being knocked over. "Some, someone came by in a boat and shot him!" he stammered to the other monks, all staring solemnly at Brother Charles's body, "I...I...I...there was no way I could have saved him."

The monks exchanged glances, but slowly bent down and carried Brother Charles towards the monastery. Adrian, however, did not follow this time. He staggered in a daze towards the waterfront and stared up at the waxing gibbous moon overhead.

There had to have been some kind of mistake, he told himself firmly. It couldn't have been Mitch, couldn't have been. Or if the name was right, maybe it was another Mitch Teeger much like there had been other Julie Teegers a few months ago. But still, what if it was right? After all, everything he knew of Mitch had come from Natalie's mouth, and come to think of it, that was bound to have a certain degree of bias to it in the first place.

No, no, that couldn't be right, he shook his head. Given Natalie's strong penchant for honesty, she would have told him outright if Mitch been involved in anything outside the ordinary...

But then again, his other side reasoned, she would also have good reason to want to protect her daughter from tainting her father's image. Come to think of it, she'd never really been too forthcoming about what their life had been like before she'd met him. What if everything she had told him was just a story to gain his sympathy and solve that burglary?

"_Stop it_," he told himself, shaking his head strongly; that was impossible, that wasn't the Natalie he knew at all.

Or did he really know Natalie at all? Had he been so eager to bring some semblence of normalcy back to his life at that point in time that he'd suppressed a clue that might have been out in the open?

"_Of course not_," he shook his head harder. Mitch would never throw away a promising life to kill himself to cover up a crime; he'd heard far too much evidence to the contrary. Besides, the timelines didn't match; he would have had to have met Frank Nunn in Brazil at the same time he'd gone off to Kosovo.

On the other hand, there was no guarantee the timeline he knew was completely right. If the phone conversation Brother Charles claimed to have heard happened immediately after Trudy had been killed, it could have been possible Mitch had gone straight down to Brazil on R & R...

He moaned loudly, wishing more than ever that Natalie had taken him with her on vacation so he would not have been in this fix in the first place. His gaze fell across the Bay towards the old naval air station. The only way now he could get any peace was to go over there the next chance he got and check Mitch's records if they were still on file so he could be absolutely sure either way.

* * *

Early at sunrise the next morning, Brother Charles was quickly and formally buried in the monastery's cemetery plot. Adrian would have preferred to have someone come over and do a full autopsy, but the ferry would not start running till nine, and besides it was monastic custom to bury the dead immediately, and Adrian knew how easily his cover could be blown if he resisted it. He did, however, abstain from helping to shovel in the grave, despite the questionable looks the other monks gave him. Once they were done, though, he did step in with one of the shovels and tamped down on the topmost dirt until the grave was as level as it could possibly be.

As they began to march back to the monastery, Father Fitzwater pulled him aside. "What exactly did happen?" he whispered in the detective's ear.

"Um,..." Adrian quickly weighed his options on what to say and what not to say. After all, there was no guarantee the father himself hadn't been the shooter, or whether he himself had something to hide. "He, uh, didn't tell me anything that would be of interest to whatever's going on here," he said hastily, "Or at least nothing that jumps out. He, he did say something about how he used to work across the bay. What, what did you know about Brother Charles?"

"Well, he's been here at least eight years; he was one of them here when I was assigned here," Father Fitzwater told him, "He and Brother Rufus went to get provisions for us once a week in town; today would have been the day they went out again. To tell you the truth, he always seemed the most reserved of our bretheren, like something was gnawing away at him. And you're sure him being shot had nothing to do with the other monks dying?"

"I'm, I'm pretty sure," Adrian nodded, "The killer's M.O., whatever it's been, has been successful so far; why would he risk changing it to shooting in the open?"

"I see," Father Fitzwater mused, "Well, what do we do now?"

"You, you said Brother Charles went out for food every week," Adrian proposed, "I'd, I'd like to fill that role with him this week. There is a lead I want to follow up on anyway."

* * *

"Again, I would like to thank you for being so...so understanding in your own, special way," Adrian told a very disgruntled Brother Rufus a few hours later. The two of them were seated in the lobby of the reception room of the former Naval Air Station Alameda, "I'd, I'd like to thank you for being willing to put up the extra money to make sure we had ten of each product, and not yelling at me for wanting to clean the aisles--and for taking the vow of silence in the first place so you couldn't--and for being accomodating enough to come down here with me, and to drive clear of the Superfund site on the south side of the island, and a couple of other things I can't remember at the moment."

Brother Rufus glared at him. He held up a piece of paper with a picture drawn on it that vaguely resembled Adrian and crumpled it up. He tossed it towards the nearest garbage can, but it missed and fell on the floor. Immediately, a graying janitor with wild hair and a crazed look in his eye rushed over and howled at the sight of it. "Again and again!" he roared out loud, seizing it with fury and hurling it into the can, "Every day it's the same story! They litter, they litter, they litter, they mess the whole place up! They do it on purpose, I say, so they can laugh a me! Don't you!?" he rounded on Adrian and Brother Rufus, "You just did that on purpose so you could laugh at me and make me waste my time, didn't you!? DIDN'T YOU!!"

"Hey Marv, give it a break, they're not the spawn of Satan!" mumbled the receptionist loudly. The janitor, however, was far too worked up by now. "Let me tell you something, I've had it!" he hissed in their faces, "I've had it with people like you coming in here and messing up the whole place so you can get a rise out of me! One of these days, one of these days, I'm going to get all of you for it, mark my words! I have not yet begun to fight!"

"Uh, let, let me just say, sir, I, I do appreciate what you do," Adrian told him, "In fact, I think there should be more people like you willing to step up and take on messes for..."

"You're just trying to buy me off, buster! Yeah, that's it!" the janitor fixed him with a steely, crazed expression, "Well you can't fool me! I'm going...!"

"Brother Adrian?" a middle-aged woman of about thirty-nine years walked into the reception room. She was wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a skirt that, while not revealing at all, was still too high for Adrian's tastes. "That's, that's me, I'm Brother Adrian," he called, focusing his gaze completely on her face, "I'm, I'm here to collect the paperwork for a member of my congregation that used to work here."

"Good afternoon, Brother; I'm Patricia Baylor, I'm curator of the archives here," she shook his hand, prompting Adrian to again robotically gesture sideways at where Natalie would ordinarily be standing. "Come with me and we'll get the necessary forms ready," Baylor waved him down the hall. "You're doing good today, Marv," she called to the obsessive janitor, now bent over the seat Adrian had been in and picking up lint.

"These guys may look like monks, Pat, but they're all out to get me!" Marv shouted, searching the chair Adrian had been sitting on for lint, "If you can get security to arrest that guy, I'd be real pleased."

Adrian tried to ignore him. "So, you said you needed some forms, Brother Adrian?" Baylor asked him.

"A, uh, member of our group at St. George's across the bay died last night," Adrian told here, "They, uh, told me to notify his closest next of kin, and since he had no immediately family, the vicar said, I was told he worked here about a decade or so ago? The name Brother Charles sound familiar?"

"Oh you mean Chuck?" Baylor's eyes lit up in realization, "Oh I always wondered what had happened to him. Sorry you lost him."

"Then you do know him?" Adrian straighted a picture of the current Secretary of the Navy hanging in the hallway, "What, what was he like when he was here; I, um, uh, was always curious after he'd mentioned he'd been here."

"I knew him as Chuck Schickram; he was one of the best mechanics the base ever had," Baylor related, opening the door into her office, "Not personally, mind you, but on a first name basis."

"He, he told me before he died that he came here after something happened that made him feel guilty," Adrian said evasively, not willing to go all the way given the topic's sensitivity.

"Oh, he must have meant that big brawl he had with Captain Mitch," Baylor nodded.

"Captain Mitch..." the detective's expression crashed.

"Captain Mitch Teeger, we all just called him Captain Mitch; it made him sound more heroic," the guide explained, "He's dead now, going on close to a decade, but he was hard to forget. We were all disappointed he was already married."

"You, you'd mentioned he'd gotten into a fight with Charles Schickram," Adrian pointed out, "What, what exactly happened there?"

"I wasn't there in person, so it may be a little off, but from what I heard afterwards, Schickram came across Captain Mitch talking to some guy who wasn't supposed to be on the base and threatened to report him," Baylor explained, "As he told it, Captain Mitch then went postal on him before the MPs broke it up. There was going to be an investigation, but Schrickram called it off at the last minute, and Captain Mitch died not long after. For some reason, the guy had started to get a shorter fuse just before he shipped off to Kosovo, like something really big was gnawing away at him. Well, here we are."

They entered Baylor's office. Adrian looked around in awe. "This, this is wonderful," he commended her, "Everything's set along straight lines. If, if you'd like, I'd call whoever's in charge once we're done here and recommend they promote you all the way to the top."

"Well, I'm glad someone does," Baylor smiled. She opened the bottom drawer (labeled R-Z) in her filing cabinets. "Here we are, Schickram, Charles R. Schickram," she pulled out the relevant file, "I hope you can..."

Her phone rang at that exactly moment. "Yeah?" she said into it, "OK, I've got one of the monks from over the other side of the bay in here and...oh all right. You going to be fine over here by yourself?" she asked Adrian, "I've got to help clean up the mess in the exhibit area; someone threw up in the bathrooms on the other side of the base ; one of the problems of Marv being the only janitor on staff here."

Adrian seized up and covered his own mouth at the thought of someone throwing up. "Uh, yeah, I'll, I'll be fine," he told a puzzled Baylor, "I'll, I'll be right here when you get back; it's far too beautiful in here to leave. And, and God be with you, you'll, you'll neeed all the help you can get with that one."

Baylor shook her head puzzledly, but left. Adrian opened up the file. Charles Schickram had joined the base in the spring of 1995, and up until the point of the brawl with Mitch had what seemed to be an exemplary record. Adrian's gaze fell on the open filing cabinet, inside which Mitch's record had to be as well. He sighed, not wanting to look at it, but know full well he had to. Producing his tweezers, he tapped through the files until the one marked TEEGER came into sight. He lifted it out with the tweezers and very hesitantly opened it up. He proceeded to read:

TEEGER, CAPTAIN MITCHELL ANDREW

TERM AT ALAMEDA: 1993-1997

REASON FOR DEPARTURE: TRANSFER, CARIBBEAN FLEET

DEMERITS WHILE AT BASE: 8

REASONS FOR DEMERITS: GOING A.W.O.L. WITHOUT COMMMANDING OFFICER'S PERMISSION (FOUR OFFENSES), ATTACKING A FELLOW OFFICER WITHOUT REASON (TWO OFFENSES), TAMPERING WITH A GOVERNMENT-ISSUED AIRCRAFT WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION (ONE OFFENSE), BRINGING UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL, CARL STEPHEN FAULKENBURG, ONTO BASE PROPERTY WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION (ONE OFFENSE).

PUNISHMENTS: NEVER ENNACTED DUE TO DEATH, KOSOVO THEATER. INVESTIGATION INTO POSSIBLE LEAKING IN BASE INFILTRATION BY MEMBERS OF PVA CANCELLED.

Adrian lowered the file and slowly took all this information in. Natalie had never given him the slightest hint that any of this might have happened. And he knew he'd heard the name Carl Faulkenburg and the PVA before. But where?

He knew one ready person who might help as he pocketed the files under his robe. He dialed the familiar precinct number on Baylor's phone. "Sergeant Christie, how can I help you?" came the voice on the other end.

"Joe, it's me, Adrian...Monk," Adrian whispered, "Listen, I'm on a really sensitive case right now, and I can only turn to you at the moment."

"Sure Monk, anything you need," Christie told him.

"Look, look up the name Carl Faulkenburg for me," Adrian suggested, "I think he may be connected to what I'm looking into. And the PVA, too."

"Give me a minute here," Christie said. Adrian could hear typing of computer keys on the other end of the line. After a minute or so, Christie let out a low whistle. "Yeesh, you've really got a nasty one here, Monk," he told the detective, "Faulkenburg was a high ranking member in the People for Vengenace against Authority movement. He's serving five hundred years for plotting a bomb threat. Are you sure you want to know what else I've got here on him?"

"What else?"

"You're absolutely sure?" Christie's voice grew very solemn. Adrian had a feeling he wouldn't like where this was going. But he had to know. "Joe, this is very important, what else?" he prodded his former partner.

"OK. Monk, Faulkenburg was linked to the six-fingered man you were looking for; he testified in court they worked together on several hits in Arizona and New Mexico," Christie related, "But his word alone wasn't enough to convict him. What's going on there, Monk? Monk, are you there?"

Adrian, at that moment, was lost in his own world. It fit everything Brother Charles had told him perfectly. Suddenly, horrible as it sounded to consider, Mitch no longer looked as innocent as he'd long assumed. "Joe, did Faulkenburg finger any of his fellow PVA members?" he asked in a very low voice.

"Not according to this, no," Christie informed him.

"I want you to get in touch with him and see if you can get any names out of him," Adrian said in a voice that couldn't help betraying shakiness, "But don't, don't go openly about it; this is basically just between you and me."

"What's going on, Monk?"

"I can't tell you that," Adrian realized he was starting to sweat like crazy, "This, this might prove to be the ending we've been looking for all these years...I think, maybe. Don't call me, I'll, I'll call you the next chance I get."

He lowered the receiver from his ear and turned to hang it up...and promptly tripped over the cord, which he saw he'd wound all over the office; apparently he'd been pacing in circles without even knowing it. The cord had snagged on the open drawer of the filing cabinet, and the detective's weight tipped it over, spilling files everywhere. Footsteps came pounding up the hall, and seconds later, Adrian found himself looking up at Marv the janitor, who looked crazier than ever. "You made a mess," he whispered accusingly at the detective.

"It..it...let me just say..." Adrian tried to reason with him.

"I...HATE...MESSES!!" Marv belowed, "PREPARE...TO...DIE!!"

With a gutteral battle yell, he charged at Adrian with his mop and swung hard at his scalp. Adrian just managed to duck the blow. "Please, please, you don't, I'm, I'm on your side!" he begged, ducking another, "We, we can clean it up together, it can be fun, sort of!"

"Fun!? With you!? After you've made my job a living hell, leaving mess every single place you go, you and everyone in this building conspiring against me!! Only in Hell!!" Marv swung the mop around like a nunchuck and lunged forward. Adrian instinctively ran up the hall, trying to avoid the soapy blows. "I'll start by cleaning your mouth out!" Marv insanely rambled, "Then I'll get down to business and clean your clock, bud! That's going to give me the most pleasure since...!!"

It was then that he stepped on a bar of soap he'd apparently left lying on the ground and slid yowling across the hall. Adrian leaped up against the wall and watched his would-be adversary topple head over heels down the nearest stairs, yelling irately all the way down. The detective shook his head and tried to sneak off in the confusion. He could at least rest easier know there was in fact someone out there more cleanliness-obsessed that he was. And besides, he now had the evidence he needed. Unfortunately, it wasn't evidence he particularly wanted. He knew of one last place to go to try and clear Mitch's name.

* * *

And so it was an hour later that he unlocked Natalie's door with his spare key and slipped inside. Natalie had made it very clear to him in no uncertain terms after her first week with him that he was not to use that key except in an unquestionable life or death situation, but he felt the circumstances more than warranted it. Brother Rufus had not been pleased, however, at his request to wait at the base for him even though this could possibly take a while.

He bustled up the stairs into the master bedroom, first taking down the drapes and taking them downstairs and throwing them in the washer; Natalie clearly had not done them for a couple of months, despite his prodding every time he'd been over. He then got the vacuum and dragged it upstairs. He plugged it into the wall outlet and reached for the On switch.

No, no, he told himself, the case took precidence over his personal preferences. He walked over to the bed and squatted down, examining under it. Natalie had told him she kept her postcards from Mitch that he'd sent her from each of his overseas stations in a metal box there, and sure enough, it was visible by the headboard. Adrian hustled back downstairs and got cleaner and paper towels out. He rushed back up to the bedroom, tore off two towels, and put them over his hands as he pulled the box out. He sprayed it down with the cleaner (no point in risking contact with some sentient germ, he figured) and examined the lock. He hated to intrude on her private matters any more than he liked her looking into his, but he simply had to know for sure if there was anyway he could be mistaken about Mitch. He spun his guess for the combination (Mitch's birthday), which proved to be correct. Adrian placed the lock on the floor and opened the box. Taking his tweezers in hand again, he pulled out the very last one, dated January 4, 1998. A picture of the Copacabana graced the front. Adrian's stomach lurched; it all still matched what Brother Charles had told him, and this made the timeline seem to line up. He slowly turned it over and read:

_Dearest Natalie,_

_The weather's so great down here in Rio. I wish you could be with me. Frank's a little ill, but there has been something going around, I've noticed. Sorry I couldn't spend the break with you before we ship out to the Mediterranean, but I had to do this alone. Lately I've been having second thought about everything, but I've been telling myself it's all for the best. So don't you worry, everything will be just fine no matter what happens. Is that car bombing still in the news? Have the authorities said anything about knowing what happened to her? Frank thinks it'll be while before they find anything out... _

Adrian could read no more. The postcard fell from his hands. _FRANK_. And an explicit mention of Trudy's fate. And the implication that Natalie herself knew something about it. How could he not have seen any of this before? Had he really been working with the enemy all along? He stumbled backwards, completely mortified...

...and became even more so by the ominous sound of the front door clicking open downstairs, followed by the unmistakable thump of suitcases on the floor. Natalie was back from vacation earlier than planned...


	6. Chapter 6

A single overwhelming thought swept Adrian: hide. He quickly shoved the postcard back into the box and snapped the lock shut, being sure to set it exactly at zero. Downstairs he heard the Teegers's footsteps moving across the foyer; they could be coming up at any moment. He kicked the box back under the bed and glanced around for a hiding place. The closet was right in front of him.

Not in there, he told himself. There had to be a better place then a claustrophobic closet.

Footsteps started up the stairs. Oh well, he shrugged, it would have to do for the moment. He jumped in and swung the door shut just in time before Natalie strolled into the bedroom. Almost immediately, his claustrophobia started kicking in. He tried his best to suppress it as he glanced through the keyhole. Natalie was examining the railing where the drapes had been and shaking her head in disappointment. "I've told you a thousand times, Mr. Monk, don't touch those," he heard her mumble softly. He retched as she started to change and turned towards the wall, trying to think of a white, static-free room. The situation had already become unbearable enough finding out what he now knew, and now to be put through this...

"Mr. Monk's not at home, and he's not at the precinct," Julie's voice wafted up from below, "Who should I call next?"

"_Call the_ _architect who built this closet and tell him to enlarge it_," Adrian thought to himself. His head was starting to spin, and he pleaded that Natalie would speed it up.

"Try Dr. Kroger's office," Natalie called down, "Maybe he had a last minute emergency. I'll be down in a minute."

Adrian dared to turn back around. Fortunately Natalie had everything on but her shoes. His expression now became muddled. Up till minutes ago, he trusted her with his life. Now he was faced with the sobering possibility that she might have had a hand, even an indirect one, in Trudy's death, and the dilemma of whether to turn her in if he got positive proof of it.

He froze up as he noticed her walking right towards the closet. Her hand reached for the knob...

"He's not there either," Julie called out from downstairs again.

"Try his brother's," Natalie called back. "What are you doing now, Mr. Monk?" she mumbled under her breath as she walked away from the closet and out of Adrian's view. He breathed a sigh of relief.

And it was not a moment too soon, for he could take it no more. He stumbled out of the closet, gasping for air. There came a scream from behind him, followed by a sharp blast of pain to his temple as he was walloped with the lamp. "Oh God Mr. Monk, don't ever scare me like that!" Natalie gasped.

"DON'T KILL ME!!" he couldn't help screaming, scampering away across the floor.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Mr. Monk," she hastily put the lamp down, "What were you doing in there?"

"Uh...cleaning," he rattled off the first logical explanation he could think of.

"Cleaning!?" she raised an eyebrow, "Mr. Monk, we agreed you would not clean this house without telling me first."

"I, uh, I'd just, just started when you came in," he said quickly, "Uh, how, how did the trip go?"

"We loved it," Natalie nodded, "One of these days we'll have to get you up there; the glaciers look great when...sorry, forgot you don't like glaciers," she noticed his uncomfortable expression, "But we road a train, we got to see where the Klondike gold rush was. Julie got a few things for you down there once you're finished here...Mr. Monk, that's my souvenirs, don't...!"

Her warning came to naught as he tried to push a sheet sticking of the nearest suitcase and inadvertantly triggered it open. Sheets and trinkets cascaded everywhere. One of them in fact landed right at Adrian's feet--a very large hunting knife, pointed right at him. He cried out again and leaped away from it. "What is this!?" he half shrieked, pointing at it like it was a viper.

"That's not real Mr. Monk, it's just rubber, see," Natalie flicked it several times for his benefit, although Adrian could see no humor in playing with even a fake knife, "They were selling these replicas of the prospector's kit, see," she held up the rest of it, including a salt tin, lantern, and pick, "I had to talk Julie out of pretending to stab you with that when we came in; she joked it was going to be a killer surprise."

"Killer surprise," Adrian whimpered uncomfortably, "Oh boy, killer surprise..."

"Mr. Monk, what is it?" she raised both eyebrows this time, "You look like you've just seen something terrible."

"Oh maybe, maybe not," Adrian eyed her hesitantly, "I'll, uh, I'll go see what Julie's got; you, you just, um, keep, keep doing what you were doing there."

He hustled out the door before she could respond. His could feel his heart pounding as he slumped down on the sofa, sweating all over. "Are you all right, Mr. Monk?" came Julie's voice unexpectedly by his ear, prompting him to jump high in the air. "Oh, uh, sor-sorry, Julie, I'm just a little...I've been having some intense times lately," he said quickly, "Uh, your mother said you had some things for me from up in Alaska."

"Right here," the girl dug through her suitcase, "We actually did some gold panning near Dawson, and here," she handed him several bags of rocks with small traces of gold dust visible in it, "This is the purest ones we found."

"I'm, uh, sure I'll treasure them," he said, pushing them down under the nearest pillow, "You, uh, you took my advice and didn't drink any of the water up there, right, and you used the wipes as often as possible?"

"As often as you said," she was frowning now, "Are you sure you're all right, Mr. Monk? You look like you need a doctor."

"Uh, well..." Adrian wrestled with whether to bring up anything he knew at all, "Um, well, Julie, do you, um, do you by any chance remember what your father--Mitch--how he, well, uh, acted, the last couple of times you saw him?"

"Hmm," Julie's brow furled, "It kind of was a long time ago, Mr. Monk, I don't really remember as much as I'd like, but I do kind of remember he seemed a little worried a lot, like he wanted to just go off and get the mission over with. Two nights before he left, he took me out to Fisherman's Wharf, and we rented a boat and went out into the bay and watched the skies for a while. And I remember he said that even if he didn't come back, just to look up there and remember that the same stars from that night would always been shining down on me. I've tried to keep it in mind since then. Why?"

"Oh, just, just curious, I sort of ran into someone he used to work with the other day," Adrian mumbled miserably; now he had confirmation of a Mitch eager to get away from the city for whatever reason.

"Oh you did?" Natalie had come down the stairs while the two of them had been talking, "Who was it?"

"I, uh, I sort of can't, Natalie, it's top secret, sort of," the detective mumurred.

"Mr. Monk, we're partners now, we agreed we shouldn't keep secrets from each other," his assistant scolded him, "Especially with Mitch. Now who was it?"

Adrian sighed and put his hands over his face. He saw no way out but to confront her with what he knew. "In, in private, please," he urged, gesturing towards the kitchen.

Natalie raised an eyebrow, but nodded softly. Gesturing for Julie to stay put on the sofa, she followed her employer into the kitchen. "OK, so what's going on that we have to do this?" she asked once she closed the door.

"Um..." Adrian tried to think of the best way to approach the situation, "Um, before, before I go on, uh, Natalie...you do remember that you said that, since we were partners and all that, that we have to believe each other?"

"Yes."

"And, uh, taking, taking this into account, you, you do promise me that, no matter what, you will be honest with me?"

"Of course I'm honest, Mr. Monk. Now what's got you so worked up?"

Adrian shuffled about uncomfortably. He knew he was probably about to cross a threshhold he might never get back across. "Natalie, when...what I mean...just, just before Mitch...before, before he died, did he by any chance...were you...uh...what I'm saying...did you by any chance notice anything...out of the ordinary in his behavior?"

"No. Why?" her expression grew puzzled.

"Um, well, uh, I...did you happen to notice whether he happened...you didn't notice any money missing from your account when...when...?"

"Mr. Monk, where is this going?" she frowned, "Why are you suddenly so interested in Mitch?"

"I, uh..." Adrian stared at the floor.

"Mr. Monk, I said you have to be honest with me too," she said firmly, "Now talk to me."

"All right, all right!" he abruptly blurted out, unable to contain his anxiety over the circumstances anymore,"Did he kill Trudy or not!?"

There was an abrupt silence as Natalie's face grew white. "What!?" she mumbled, taken aback.

"Did he do it or not!?" Adrian repeated in a crackling voice, "And if he did, how much did you know!?"

"WHAT!!" her jaw completely dropped in shock. It took a good thirty seconds before she found her voice again, "How could you say that!?"

"Listen, I...I...the man I met who knew him, Charles Schickram,..." the detective mumbled slowly,

"You would believe Chuck Schickram!?" she grew very defensive, 'Mr. Monk, he had a vendetta against Mitch, he was jealous of him, they had a running feud ever since Mitch was at the base! What's his number; I'm going to give him...!!"

"He's dead," Adrian said bluntly, "He was killed last night, just as he was telling me about the Judge. And as it turns out, it looks like several things he said turned out to be true. Several things you never told me, like how Mitch started acting suspiciously during the last few months of his life, how he attacked a couple of people and met with several confirmed militants."

"And you believed Schickram!?" she was shaking, "Mr. Monk, he was just using you, he reeled you in for whatever...!"

"You also never mentioned anything about Mitch and the six-fingered man," he interrupted loudly, "About how they met in Brazil. I saw that postcard..."

"You went through my private belongings!?" the anger seethed in her voice, "How dare you, after I told you not to interfere in my...!?"

"Look, I don't want to believe this either, but everything I've seen looks very bad for him!!" Adrian howled, miserable that he was in this situation, "Now Natalie, if you are keeping anything from me at all, I'll have to ask you...I'll have to ask you to come clean..."

"HOW DARE YOU!! she bellowed, "How dare you try and do this to my husband!! He's innocent, Mr. Monk, and you know that!! After everything I've done for you, you would dare say that about the man I loved!!"

"Natalie, please..."

"DON'T YOU NATALIE ME, DAMN IT!!" she took a menacing step towards him, "You take it all back right now! Right now!!"

Adrian stared glumly at the floor, "I, I wish I could, believe me, I wish I could, but I can't," he mumbled almost inaudibly, "I have evidence...I've heard you might even know something about Trudy's death, and that postcard, Mitch mentioning the bomb..."

"I SAID TAKE IT BACK NOW!! she grabbed him by the collar and shoved him roughly against the sink. "Mom, stop!" Julie burst through the kitchen door and tried to squeeze in between them, "Stop it, what are you doing!?"

"Mr. Monk's got something he'd like to tell you. Go on, tell it to her, see if you can say it to her face," Natalie ordered him.

Adrian whimpered, miserable. "Uh, well, Julie, I...I sort of..." he covered his face and turned away, unable to bear looking at her face while he said it, "I've heard some things...I have some reason to...some reason to...some reason to believe your father...Mitch, your father...he might...that he might...he might..." he broke down in tears, "...it's possible he might have killed Trudy. Now I don't want to believe it, I want it not to be true, but some things...some things...they seem to...oh God..."

He had no way of going on. "So are you going to take it back or not!?" Natalie demanded.

"I...I...I...I...I can't. Not right now. Believe me Natalie, I want to, more than anything, but without solid proof that he's innocent..."

"Then I'm going to have to ask you to leave this house. Right now," she ordered firmly, "And until you do take it back, I quit."

"So you're sticking with saying you know nothing?" he mumbled weakly, "Because, I, I, I should tell you, if you are covering anything up, I'll have to notify the authorities..."

The was a loud rattle as Natalie threw open the nearest drawer, pulled out a very large carving knife, and thrust it dangeorusly close to his face. "I said get out," she thundered murderously, not noticing her daughter's horrified reaction to this, "I'm not asking a third time."

Adrian stumbled backwards, shocked that she would be this defensive. "He wasn't a saint, Natalie," he blurted out as he backed towards the door, guessing that this was not the right time to bring up Schickram's claim that Mitch had killed himself purposely, "It's on record at the base he attacked several people. You always tell me it's wrong to live a lie even if it feels good to you. Don't make the same..."

Natalie took a very large step towards him with the carving knife, prompting him to take off as fast as he could out of the kitchen. Perhaps all too fittingly, it was pouring down rain again as he crashed out the front door and stumbled up the block. He didn't stop until he reached the corner and glanced back to make sure she wasn't still running after him. It was only then that the full weight of what he'd just done swept him. In one fell swoop he'd managed to cut all of his lifelines to the most important person in his life, and there was probably no way he could take it back now. And suddenly, as this sobering fact set in, he found he no longer had any control over his internal cravings. He staggered down the street, touching every parking meter and lamppost twice. The city seemed completely out of order around him, and he had to fix it all right away.


	7. Chapter 7

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As you might expect, I'd like to take this opportunity to extend condolences to the friends and family of Stanley Kamel on his passing. You should know that this will not affect this story in any way, as I never intended Dr. Kroger to be in it. We'll see what the character's ultimate fate is in July before I address it in this continuity, but even if it is curtains for Charles, I still may have use for him some time down the line. That being said, let us continue where we last left our hero...

* * *

"Hey, hey, hey, don't touch that!" shouted the chauffeur of the expensive limo as Adrian staggered by, touching the antenna. The detective paid no attention. He stumbled up the block in a daze, touching every antenna and lightpost in his path, stopping only to tear at the leaves on the lettuce on display at an outdoor stand. "What the hell do you think you're doing!?" yelled the proprietor, throwing his massive frame over the lettuce to protect them, "I'll call the cops!"

"I was the cops," Adrian mumbled numbly, drifting off. He halted a man in an expensive suit and buttoned his tuxedo up. Then he kicked crazily at some litter on the ground, trying to at least get it in the vicinity of the nearest trash can. The chaos around him seemed overwhelming, and he knew he was fighting a losing battle.

He had lost track of time and direction in his hysteria, and came to a stop only when he saw he'd reached the waterfront. He slumped against the railing and looked up at the raining sky. "WHYYYY!!" he roared toward it, "Why did you have to make the sign this!? I didn't want this! Not this way! Why does everything have to come with strings attached!?"

He slid to the ground. He couldn't blame Natalie for getting upset, guilty or not; he would probably have reacted the same way had she proposed Trudy committed suicide with the bomb. On the other hand, she had denied nothing, meaning she might indeed have known about Trudy's fate the whole time. Certainly thrusting a knife right in his face didn't help her image in his mind as a possible Mata Hari. In fact, the more Adrian thought over it, the silhouette of the driver of the speedboat that had shot Charles Schickram looked like that of a woman. Was it possible the shooter had in fact been Natalie herself, somehow knowing Schickram was going to squeal and covering it up to preserve her husband's honor? It no longer seemed completely impossible; there were ways she may have faked the trip and sworn Julie to secrecy. And then the question became whether Julie was lying to him as well, something he'd have thought unfathomable...

"Trudy," he whispered softly, "Tell me Trudy, is it true or not? Come on, tell me so I know!"

He looked around. Unlike so many other times, however, Trudy did not appear this time, and Adrian did not feel her presence, or indeed any presence at all. He roared out loud. "I've had it!" he shouted back at the sky, "I've had it with having to go through existence like this! Come and take me! Come on, you've got the power, I don't want this any more! Take me!"

He heard the squealing of brakes behind him. He had just enough time to turn before the Probe crashed into him, sending him flying.

* * *

When he came to, the hooded faces of the monks were staring down at him. "Am I dead yet?" he mumbled. They all shook their heads slowly, looking somewhat disappointed.

"You took a rather nasty knock on the head," Father Fitzwater strode into view with a wet rag in hand. "No, no, no, I'm, I'm fine!" Adrian jumped away before the priest could apply it to his temple, "You haven't done that before have you?"

The other monks all nodded. "The medic said it was simply a mild concussion, and that what medicine we have here could treat you," Father Fitzwater said, "Believe me, I tried to stop, but you ran right out into the road..."

"Wait, medic?" Adrian noticed something else; there were only four other monks in the room. "Brother Thomas?" he inquired.

"I'm afraid he too has joined our Father in the next world while you were out," Father Fitzwater shook his head sadly, "Much the same way Brother Clement and Brother Pius did, with no warning and no signs of injury."

"When was this?" Adrian glanced out the window. It was the height of the morning outside.

"A few hours ago," the vicar informed him, "We'd been looking for you all day, after the people at the air station called to say Brother Rufus couldn't stay overnight. I would have like not to have run into you, but you were right in the middle of the road. Brother Rufus has requested an explanation for why you left him there."

Brother Rufus glared right at the detective. "I, uh, I was looking for something about my wife," Adrian admitted. Seeing the dour looks on the other monks' faces, he went on, "Yes, I had a wife once, my, uh, order wasn't too restrictive on that. She was...heaven on earth, really."

He sniffed back the tears. "When I was with her, everything...everything was perfect," he related, "She brought me the joys of living that I never knew existed before. Then she was taken, and everything lost its luster. I'll, I'll admit, I've wanted to die too, many, many times since then. Only the desire to find who took her's kept me going, and even that's not really enough sometimes. Every day without her, it's sheer torture like you can't imagine. I, I hope you do understand what I'm saying."

It indeed appeared the monks did; several of them were on the verge of tears themselves, including the stern Brother Rufus himself. "Well, I think now that Brother Adrian is up and about, we've no need to continue our vigil for him," Father Fitzwater announced, "You may return to your meditations while I bring him up to speed on several of the things he has missed while he was out."

The monks slowly shuffled out of the office. Father Fitzwater closed the door behind them. "Again, I'm sorry I had to run you down like I did," he apologized again, "I had no idea you were there."

"To be honest, Father, you should havbe just finished the job and killed me," Adrian mumbled bitterly.

"Now you shouldn't say that," the vicar scolded him, "Every life has value, and..."

"Don't invoke your precious God to me, because I know for sure he doesn't exist now!" Adrian found himself roaring at the priest, who jumped back in shock. The detective tried to recollect himself before adding, "I asked for his help and got nothing, nothing at all, so you'd better know he isn't there. If he was, I wouldn't be in this whole mess."

Father Fitzwater sighed in regret. "Well, if that's your avowed point of view, Mr. Monk, there's probably little I can do to dissuade you," he conceded, "However, if you do need someone to listen to, I am here."

"All right," Adrian sighed. He told Father Fitzwater what he'd discovered about Schickram's past and the Teegers' apparent hand in Trudy's death. "I, I can't trust anyone again," he admitted sorrowfully, "That's, that's why I'd like to stay here after we solve this case, so I can forget everything. So tell me what happened to Brother Thomas so we can get this over with as quickly as possible."

"It happened while I was out looking for you," Father Fitzwater informed him, "But it was the same as the other deaths; inside a locked cell and with no apparent marks on the body and no sign of entry. Later in the night, the noises started up again from down below the monastery; drilling and hissing sounds. Anything you know that can help?"

"Well, I, I do have an idea where they're coming from," Adrian told him about the caverns he'd discovered the other day. "Oh, I'd almost forgotten about those," Father Fitzwater exclaimed, "The entrance got sealed off by that earthquake about five years ago; someone must have either found a new entrance or dug it open again. Shall we go check it out?"

"And you feel up to trudging around in a dirty cave?" Adrian was surprised at the father's bravery.

"Mr. Monk, that injury in high school took only the best of my physical abilities," the priest proclaimed, breaking into a haphazard somersault to prove his point, "I can certainly manage a bit of spelunking."

* * *

"We should have brought more candles," Adrian complained as the two of them trudged slowly through the cavern. He inched his file to the edge of his hand and scraped away at the wax dripping off his candle, "We need at least two sets of backups in here."

"Oh, I think we'll be just fine," Father Fitzwater seemed unpreturbed by the darkness. They were in about fifteen hundred feet by now, having discovered the entrance to the caverns had been partially opened by the killer and having enlarged it further for their purposes. The vicar stopped briefly and glanced around to get his bearings. "The drillings came from over there, Mr. Monk," he pointed with his cane, "It seemed to be coming from right under the chapel, which if I'm not mistaken is in that direction."

He ambled off towards the epicenter of the sounds. Adrian had to hustle to keep up, preoccupied with keeping his candle as intact as possible. Thus, he did not notice the large black puddle in the middle of the floor that he stepped right into. "Yaak!!" he yelped, hopping around wildly on one foot, "I'm contaminated, Father! Get it off me, quick, get it off!!"

"Relax, please, you won't die, Mr. Monk," Father Fitzwater strode over. He took hold of the detective's leg and examined the substance. He frowned and sniffed at it. "I think I know what our killer's after," he announced, "This appears to be crude oil, Mr. Monk. Pure crude oil."

"Oil," Adrian repeated. He smelled the cavern, which was loaded with the scent of light sweet crude. "Yes, that at least gives us motive," he whispered, "There's at least several thousand barrels worth of it in this cave alone, and it probably goes down even deeper under the island. Yes, over here," he hopped on his uncontaminated leg over to the wall and gestured towards the floor. A broken-off diamond tipped drill head was lying next to an identation on the wall that bore clear signs of tool marks. "Bags in my pocket," he gestured for Father Fitzwater to get one out, "This monastery's on top of a gold mine, and the killer wants it all."

"So then one of the remaining monks under my watch isn't who he claimed he is," Father Fitzwater took the bag and held it open while Adrian picked up the drill bit with his tweezers and dropped it in, "And it looks like they've drilled up there, too."

He held up his candle to show a new tunnel had been gouged out of the ceiling of the cavern, leading upwards towards an unknown location. "It's too high for us to reach," the priest confirmed, much to Adrian's relief, "Let us see if we can find out how the killer's plying his unorthodox trade next."

He led the detective back into the main cavern and deeper towards the flecks of light coming from under the monks' cells now visible ahead. "Let's see, if we're facing east, Brother Thomas's would have to be the third one on the right...right here," he stopped underneath it. The two of them stared up through the grating into the cell. "He climbed up here," Adrian gestured at a small ledge under the grating that had several large chunks of rock knocked loose, "But the stones around the grating's intact. He didn't push it open, so he stayed down here when he killed him. Put, put your cane up there, Father."

"I see what you mean," Father Fitzwater thrust his cane, which was barely big enough to get through the grating's opening, as far as it would go. Adrian could tell it was nowhere near Brother Thomas's bed. "So he couldn't have stabbed him or injected him with anything," the detective summarized, "Maybe he unleashes some kind of chemical virus," he grimaced at the thought of that, "Or some kind of super tazer of some kind, I don't know. We'll have to..."

He stopped abruptly as he heard an unmistakable sound coming from back near the entrance: the sound of a fuse burning. "DYNAMITE!!" he shrieked, breaking into a mad dash for the entrance. It was too late, however, for the dynamite exploded with a tremendous blast, sending him tumbling backwards and blowing out his candle. In the pitch darkness, he still knew that he and Father Fitzwater were now sealed underground with no other way out.


	8. Chapter 8

"Come on, don't just stand around there, do something with me!" Adrian screamed at Father Fitzwater. The detective was frantically grabbing boulders and stacking them in piles according to their size.

"I am doing something," Father Fitzwater said calmly. He dropped back to his knees. "Father in heaven, we pray for your aid in allowing us to escape from this difficult predicament..." he mumbled softly.

"Will you just stop that!" Adrian shouted, rolling a large boulder over to another pile after noticing the one he'd been putting similar ones in now had exactly ten boulders in it, "You know that's not going to do anything!"

"That's what you say," the vicar would clearly not be swayed. He went back to his praying. Adrian's head started spinning; it felt like the walls were closing in. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of debris blocking the entrance, and he had a distinct feeling the air wouldn't last long enough to get close to the edge. He started lifting the rocks he could at a faster clip, taking care to scrape at his clothing immediately afterwards to get the dust off. But there was still too many left. A loud cry escaped his throat. The claustrophobia was already reaching a fever pitch. "Water...air...dry cleaning...!!" he whimpered, rolling the boulders into even circles. It looked pretty hopeless...

And then suddenly, a shaft of light blazed into the cavern from behind the boulders. Adrian did a double take; someone was clearing the blockage on the other side. "We're, we're alive in here, keep it going!" he shouted at their savior, increasing his own efforts. Within three minutes, a decent enough hole had been opened. Adrian dove back into the daylight as quickly as he could, regretting this when his landing sent up a big cloud of dust around him. Slapping it off himself, he looked up and found himself staring into Natalie's face. "You came," he said softly.

"Are you all right, Mr. Monk?" there was a genuine sense of concern in her eyes as she extended a hand to help him up, "I got out of the monks here that you'd come this way, then I heard the blast..."

"You, you didn't by any chance see who set it off?" he inquired.

"No. Which brings me to my conditions, Mr. Monk," her face grew much sterner, "If I'm going to help you any further on this, you're first going to take back everything you said about Mitch. Then you're going to clear him of whatever Chuck Schickram used to connect him to Trudy."

"Believe me, Natalie, I want him to be innocent, more than anything I want him to be innocent, but when everything points to..." he tried to explain.

"This is not negotiable, Mr. Monk," she told him firmly, "Either you clear my husband of everything, or it's over."

"And by over, you mean over over?"

"Over over OVER, period," she spelled it out for him, "You won't work with me, you won't contact me..."

"Now, now, I don't think this is any time for hard feelings of any kind," a completely nonplussed Father Fitzwater squirmed out of the hole, leaning heavily on his cane, "I must thank you for your assistance in helping us out there, Mrs. Teeger, I presume?"

"How did you know?" she was amazed.

"Oh, after thirty years in the priesthood, you become able to guess quite a few things. Father Bernard Fitzwater," he shook her hand, "I brought this case about my dead monks to Mr. Monk's attention."

"What, what made you change your mind to come?" Adrian had to ask her.

Natalie sighed, regret now filling her features. "After you left yesterday, I had a talk with Julie," she admitted, "Actually, rather, she had a talk with me. And she told me that deep down, she cares more about knowing the truth than having her father's image intact. In fact, she was rather adamant about it, much more than I'd thought. She insisted that I should at least give the possibility that Mitch could..." her voice faltered and choked as she wrestled with the forbidden thought, "...that he could have killed Trudy a thought, so at least we'd all know for sure, that we might have closure if by some chance it's true. So the next time you see her, Mr. Monk, you'd better get down on your knees and thank her with all your heart, because the only reason I'm here is because she convinced me of that."

"The only reason?" Father Fitzwater raised an eyebrow, "I sense there's more to your change of heart than just that, Mrs. Teeger."

Natalie nodded, now looking incredibly guilty. "She also told me that I scared her when I drew the knife," she conceded to Adrian, "That for a moment she didn't recognize me, that she was...afraid of me and what I might do. And I am sorry about that, Mr. Monk, I just...I don't really know what came over me, maybe I hold Mitch so dear, I just...but I didn't mean to go that far. I won't do it again." Her brow furled. "But I still expect Mitch to come out of this clean, Mr. Monk. So tell me everything Schickram told you about him."

"Well..." Adrian took a deep breath and proceeded to related everything he'd heard from Schickram's mouth. Natalie took it all in with a neutral expression. "OK, I can tell you right off the bat that over half of what he told you is an outright lie," she declared once he'd finished, "First, Mitch never drank a drop of alcohol in his life, so he would have no reason to even be in a bar in the first place. Secondly, as I tried to say yesterday, Schickram started that fight at the base and threw the first punch. He always wanted to be a pilot himself, and was jealous that Mitch had everything he didn't, so he started spreading rumors that he was...he was intimate with me. Mitch only acted in self-defense."

"So that's what Mitch told you, or what you saw firsthand?" Adrian asked with raised eyebrows.

"Mr. Monk, have I ever given you any reason not to trust what I say!?" she asked defensively, "This is Mitch I'm talking about; do you really think...!?"

"You never did tell me about that fight with Schickram, Natalie," Adrian said firmly, "Is there anything else you've kept from me? Like that postcard to Frank in Brazil I found...?"

"Mr. Monk, that's not the six-fingered man," she protested, "Frank Lonergan was one of Mitch's friends in high school; he invited him down there just before he left on assignment to Kosovo."

"How about Mitch specifically referring to Trudy's death, Natalie? You also never told me he knew anything about her."

"He didn't! Mr. Monk, he occasionally read her columns in the paper; he'd read about the bombing and wanted to know if they found anything about...!!"

She let out a wail and put her hands to her face. "Oh why is this happening!?" she moaned to no one in particular, "Why Mitch, why now!?"

"It is all right, my child," Father Fitzwater laid a hand on her shoulder, "You will get through this soon enough, I'm sure of it. God will see to it that all will be well in the end."

"I know, Father, but..." Natalie's pleas were cut off by the honking of a car horn. A gray Mercury was pulling towards them from the ferry dock. Christie's head emerged from the driver's window. "Hey Monk," he called out as he pulled alongside the detective, "Monk, I got the call from the medical staff you'd been brought here after you got hit. I got through to Carl Faulkenburg. I've got a name for you."

"You do?" Adrian suppressed a nervous twitch; this would either give Mitch a reprieve or permanently condemn him, "Who was it, Joe?"

"He said his superior in the PVA was a man named Charles Schickram," Christie handed the detective a signed affidavit, "They had been planning a large scale bomb attack when Faulkenburg was arrested."

"You see, Mr. Monk, Schickram set Mitch up," Natalie was crying tears of joy, "He'd never..."

"Wait, I've got more," Christie held up his hand, "I tried to track Schickram down, but I found out he was dead."

"I know Joe, I saw..." Adrian abruptly stopped, "Wait, what?"

"They found Schickram's body in the bay about two weeks ago," Christie informed him, "He'd been stabbed about seven times."

"And they confirmed it was Schickram beyond any doubt?"

"Yeah, DNA testing verified it. Why, Monk?"

"But if that was Schickram who died two weeks ago," Adrian glanced confusedly at an equally puzzled Father Fitzwater, "Who was I talking to the other night?"


	9. Chapter 9

"No, no, the mounds, they're not even," Adrian protested to the remaining monks, who were busy digging up Schickram's supposed grave, He picked up a shovel of his own and started scraping small chunks of earth off each pile as it took to even them out,"That's the way God would want it, I guess."

All the monk's eyes simultaneously rolled. The detective took several steps backwards as a few shovelfuls landed right by his feet. "Speaking of God, Mr. Monk," Natalie sided up alongside him, "The Father tells me you told him you don't believe in him."

"Natalie, I thought someone like you would know better by now than to believe in fairy tales," the detective grumbled, "You of all people should know there's nothing up there."

"On the contrary, Mr. Monk, it was God who got me through losing Mitch," his assistant told him, "I could feel him whenever I was sad, when I felt like losing hope. I think you're just not looking hard enough."

"Not looking hard enough!?" it was his turn to roll his eyes, "When two thousand years of human history show there's no verifiable proof of a higher being, and when you and I have no reason to believe in any benevolent force..."

"But I do believe, and I always will believe," she responded firmly, "And I think you don't quite understand. God isn't always explicit; he works in ways we're not meant to comprehend. But he's always there if you need him, and he always cares for you. So if you'll..."

She was cut off by a thumping sound as the shovels struck the coffin below in the grave. "That's good," Father Fitzwater called to his monks. He took hold of a cable attached to a winch set up at the head of the grave and handed it to Christie, now with his sleeves rolled up, "I'll crank when you've got it on."

"Right," Christie slid into the grave and slipped the cable around the coffin. "Go," he flashed the thumbs-up to the vicar, who slowly raised the coffin back up out of the ground. Adrian drew a wipe and cleaned it off as it thumped to the ground next to him. "You, you open it," he gestured to Natalie. She sighed, but slowly pushed the lid open...

...and gasped along with everyone else. For the coffin was completely empty. "What!?" her employer's jaw dropped, "But he was in there, we saw it, didn't we?"

He glanced at Father Fitzwater for confirmation. The vicar nodded solemnly. He leaned over the coffin and glanced around it. "Wait a moment, the screws in the head, they appear to be looser than those along the sides," he proclaimed. He tapped the headboards with his cane, and they swung outward. "And look," he pointed into the grave. A tunnel was visible near the top where Schickram's head would have been, "Somehow he knew our order buries the dead before dawn, when no one could see that there."

Adrian was glancing down the row of tombstones. "These are all in order of death," he mused, taking notes of the death dates of the monks buried in the row, "He knew this was where he'd be buried if we thought he was dead. He surveyed the grave from underneath, Father; some of the drilling you heard under the monastery must have been him digging the escape tunnel; that must have been the one we saw in the cave. Then he must have rigged the coffin when no one was looking."

He frowned, noticing a few small red streaks near the corner of the coffin. He bent down and sniffed at it. "This isn't blood," he remarked, "Just some of the oil mixed with food coloring. He wasn't shot at all; he must have rigged something knowing that in the dark I wouldn't notice as clearly, especially after he got me riled up with what he told me."

"So you've got a guy who poses as a monk, is convincing enough to fool everyone here, gives you false information about Trudy's death, then fakes his own death to get away," Christie climbed out of the grave, "Why would anyone try all that?"

"Oil, Joe, there's a huge deposit down there under the monastery," Adrian told him, "And if there's been drilling, then whoever it is has to be connected to a major oil company to get the equipment to extract the oil. They've also got a woman working for them; a woman was driving the boat that drove by when he was apparently shot; I don't have anything more specific than that, it was dark and I was wound up."

"I'll bet whoever it is works with Omnipresent Oil in Oakland," Natalie proposed, "They're the closest major company to here; they've been hit with a number of fines over the last couple of months for drilling in places they weren't supposed to, it's been all over the news."

"All right then, we might as well go pay them a call and see what they know, if anything...after, after I get this all straightened out," Adrian took his shovel in hand again and began tamping down the mounds of dirt, prompting more eye rolling from the monks.

* * *

"The two of you have been rather quite since we left the monastery," Father Fitzwater told Adrian and Natalie inside his car as they idled in the streets of Oakland, "I suspect something is on your minds."

"Well Father, it's just...I called the naval base my husband worked at before I came here," Natalie confessed a bit dismally, "I learned a few things I'd rather not have known."

"So, so now that you're willing to be open, Natalie, what DID you know?" Adrian fixed her with a strong gaze.

"All right," she took a deep, painful breath, "I knew about the fight with Schickram, Mr, Monk, and I knew Mitch went AWOL once in his last couple of months. I didn't know he had four AWOL sanctions, and not that he hit his commanding officer. But I can tell you it was probably Schickram's doing; he spread rumors he was sleeping with me to everyone, and the commander was always too much of a bully to begin with. And it was Schickram who had to have sabotaged those planes if he was the leader of the PVA; framing Mitch would have been his perfect revenge. You do believe me, don't you Mr. Monk?"

She gave him an almost pleading look. Adrian found himself slowly nodding. "Yes, yes I do, Natalie," he told her, "I do believe."

"Thank you," she looked fulfilled as he'd rarely seen her fulfilled before. She immediately sighed again, however. "To be perfectly honest," her expression grew almost regretful, "I think Mitch kind of knew he wasn't coming back from Kosovo, Mr. Monk. He started becoming more spiritual, and, well, moody. There were times he seemed like he wasn't really in the here and now, like his attention was focused on what was ahead of him. Looking at it now, I'm not all that surprised he went AWOL a couple times; the pressure of looming combat must have been terrible to contemplate and live with. And there were a couple of times..." she seized up and put her hands over her face, "There were a few times he was snappy with me before the end for what I thought was no reason at the time. The worst was when he came home from service a week before he shipped out and went into a tirade for no reason at all. The neighbors almost called the police."

"Did Julie witness it?" the detective had to ask.

"She was away at the time with friends," his assistant told him, "She's never known it happened. Up to now, I've thought there'd be no reason for her to know it happened. I want her to remember her father pure. I wanted to remember him pure; for years I tried to block out that it had happened, that Mitch would never have been capable of that. Was I wrong, Father?"

She glanced imploringly at Father Fitzwater. "I certainly understand where you're coming from, Mrs. Teeger," the vicar told her soothingly, "Every human being tries to shape reality to the point where they'd be most comfortable; many might even take the point that reality IS what you choose to make it. But we can never run away from what reality is; we must face it at one point or another or risk falling into a shadow of ourselves. I myself made that error for about a year after my football career ended; I sat around thinking that I really was fine and everyone else was wrong. Fortunately, however, God found me before I became trapped in that false world and made it clear that I could do far more good elsewhere, and I should say I've been happy with the results. So we must accept that no person is black or white, that seeing the grays make them more real, and ourselves more whole."

"If, if it makes you feel any better about it, Natalie," Adrian felt he had to air his own difficulties on the matter, "I refused to accept Trudy was gone for a year and a half after I lost her. I'd walk into rooms and pretend she was there, like nothing had happened. It, it only made the pain worse. So eventually I stopped it. Not, not that it made the pain go away..."

"Thank you, Mr. Monk, that does make me better," she gave him a warm smile. "And here we are," Father Fitzwater pulled into a parking space in front of a very tall skyscraper that made Adrian's blood freeze at its sheer height. "Ominpresent Oil," the priest muttered with thinly veiled disgust, "If there's one thing I loathe, it's people who worship solely the false idols of material wealth, and damage the Lord's creation to attain it. Well, let us see what we can achieve in here."

The lobby of the building was large enough to park at least three football fields inside. The walls were festooned with expensive gold leaf and Baroque style paintings. "Unbelieveable," Natalie muttered in contempt herself, "People are starving all over the world, and they design this like a palace. If I..."

"Can I help you?" a low, almost high-strung voice intoned from behind the reception desk. A clerk with a high forehead and a drawn face glanced smugly at them. "Yes, I'm, I'm Adrian Monk, you, you probably have heard of me one way or another by now," Adrian greeted him, pulling letters off a felt message board by the desk and sticking them back on so the words all lined up perfectly, "We'd, we'd like to speak with someone in your research and exploration department."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Faracy is away on business," the clerk told him arrogantly, "Perhaps he can make room for you sometime next week."

"Now listen you, you...overpaid hooligan!" Natalie unexpectedly bellowed at him, "A number of people are dead, and we think someone in your company is behind it, so unless you want to find more problems coming down on you than the consumer advocates you spit on can...!"

"Natalie,..." Adrian tugged her shoulder.

"I'm not finished Mr. Monk," she told him. Turning back to the clerk, who looked not the least bit apologetic, she ranted,"You people choke the life out of average citizens like us so you can rack up the biggest profits you can...!!"

"Natalie look," Adrian tapped her hard on the shoulder and pointed to the picture on the wall of what was apparently Ominpresent Oil's board of directors. "Fred Faracy," he pointed at the man in the back row second from the left.

"Brother Charles," Father Fitzwater nodded.

"Chuck Schickram," Natalie's jaw dropped, "They look almost exactly alike."

She stormed back over to the desk. "As I was saying, where is your boss now!?" she demanded.

"Miss, if you do not restrain yourself, I will have security bar you and everyone with you from the building," the clerk said, bored.

The door slid open. "Sorry I'm late, Monk," Christie came huffing up, "I couldn't find a parking space anywhere in here. Find anything out?"

"No, Joe, this man's been giving us a hard time," Adrian couldn't help suppress a bit of satisfaction in fingering out the clerk. Christie pulled out his badge. "S.F.P.D., you're obligated to tell us anything we wish," he told the man.

"Very well," the clerk sighed bitterly, "Mr. Faracy is away with his wife on business, and will not be back for the rest of this week. And I assure you, he nor anyone involved with this company has broken any laws, contrary to what the media paints as..."

"This is his wife here?" Adrian pointed at another picture across from the one featuring the board of directors. This one had Faracy with a squat, short-haired woman on a far too expensive yacht somewhere off Athens.

"Yes. Why is that important, mister?"

"It was her who shot him," Adrian nodded towards Father Fitzwater, "She fits the woman driving that boat." He turned back to the clerk. "Was Mr. Faracy doing any surveying in the bay area over the last few weeks?"

"Mr. Faracy was on vacation last week," the clerk said defensively, "Previously he had been scoping out potential deposits of oil in Brazil and India, but nothing came of that. Now if none of you mind, I'm a very busy man, so if you will please exit the building in an orderly fashion..."

"Then let us talk to someone else if you won't talk to us!" Natalie demanded, "Several monks' lives might be in danger if we don't find a killer; doesn't human life warrant that much from you!?"

"Security, we have several people making a scene here in the lobby," the clerk said in a bored manner into his phone, "Kindly remove them from the building at once."

"You realize that throwing us out warrants contempt of the law," Christie warned him, "The charges from that will..."

He didn't get a chance to finish, as four large and unshaven security guards came upon them and dragged the four of them out the front door. "And don't come back," the biggest one warned as he closed the door hard behind them. "Corporate America," Christie muttered, dusting himself off, "You've got to love the incredible respect they show everyone."

"Well, at least we know Faracy's the killer, right Mr. Monk?" Natalie glanced at her employer for some sign they were on the right track.

"Oh he's the guy, all right," Adrian nodded glumly, "But without access to him or the building, there's no way we can prove it. So as much as I hate to say it, I think he's going to get away with it, unless we get some kind of miracle that can convict him. But what am I saying, miracles don't happen in real life," he threw up his hands in frustration, "Solid evidence doesn't just drop out of the sky."

It was at that moment that a piece of paper blew into his face. Adrian pulled it off...and stared at it intently. Without warning, a loud laugh escaped his throat. "What, what is it?" Natalie leaned over his shoulder.

"A miracle," Adrian managed to exclaim between his laughter, "And you can rest easy now, Natalie; Mitch had nothing to do with Trudy's death at all. Read this."

He held the paper up for her. Natalie's eyes widened as she took it in herself. "And this is Faracy's handwriting, you're sure of it?" she had to ask.

"He'd signed his name under his board picture; perfect match," Adrian couldn't contain his relief.

"Oh my God," she exclaimed with a pinch of distaste at the paper, "THIS is what all this has been about!?"

"Really, I'm surprised he's been the only one to try it so far," Adrian smoothed the note out and bagged it, "We can catch Faracy now; he's back at the monastery, I think he's going to kill again."

"See Mr. Monk, God does smile on those who wish to do his will," Father Fitzwater told him with a knowing smile as they hurried back to his car.

"Well, maybe," Adrian said hesitantly, but he did glance skyward with a smile of his own, "Let's see how the rest of this plays out first."


	10. Chapter 10

Dusk had fallen when the last ferry for the night landed with a thump on the monastery landing. Adrian rubbed his stomach as he jumped out; the bay's waves had been rougher than he'd expected. "Back, back up a few yards off the shore," he instructed the ferry pilot, "Don't let anyone except us off the island."

"Where do we look first, Monk," Christie asked him, drawing his gun.

"Back in the cave," Adrian held up his hand. Drilling could be heard distinctly from where they were standing, "But, but first, I'd like to make sure this time we've got better lighting."

"Right," Christie dug through his dashboard for flashlights. "Father, check each and every cell," Adrian instructed Father Fitzwater, "If your monks are in there, get them out; it could already be in there."

"It?" Natalie asked, "You didn't exactly explain what you learned, Mr. Monk."

"It was right on the paper, Natalie; you were only looking at what he'd written that concerned you," Adrian explained as they dashed towards the cave entrance, "They'd been buying up mice and shrews for a few months, Faracy and his wife, and a small heater. That could only mean they were taking care of...it," he grimaced in fear.

"And it is...?" she was starting to look a bit frustrated by his indirectness.

"New World pit viper," Adrian shivered openly, "It's native to Brazil, and the clerk said Faracy had been surveying oil there; he probably picked up a specimen while planning this. Every night he wanted to kill one of the monks, he slipped out in the dead of night and entered the cave. He knew the gratings underneath gave him the chance to commit the murder without being seen or noticed. He let the viper go up through the grating and waited until it bit its victim. Once he was sure he'd succeeded, he recalled it, probably with some of his mice, and I think he's using it again right now; the monks are praying from here until midnight, no one'll interrupt him."

He paused by the entrance to the cave until Christie came running up with a pair of flashlights. The three of them entered and hustled towards the sound of the drilling, only to be surprised by the glare of small arc lights from the end of the oil tunnel. A silhouette could be make out drilling at the walls, from which trickling sounds could be heard. Christie shut off his flashlight and crept up to the form. "Police, freeze!" he shouted as he jumped forward, but the figure did not initially stop, likely since the drilling drowned out every sound. He reached forward and shut off the switch, making the figure jump. "Mrs. Fred Faracy, I presume?" he asked, drawing his handcuffs.

"Look, it was all his idea!" she protested, "I told Fred to just exert pressure on the church; I never wanted him to resort to murder! I wanted to tell...!"

"And what have we here?" the sergeant glanced over the ridge in the cavern. A miniature submarine was moored in a large lagoon, with oil barrels stacked by it, "So this is how you get all the crude out of here without being noticed."

Adrian had in fact noticed something else; an empty terrarium by the wall with what was clearly a shed snake skin. "Where is your husband now, Mrs. Faracy?" he asked her breathlessly.

"He's off doing it again with that damn reptile!" she admitted.

"Which monk is he planning on killing!?"

"How am I supposed to know, he just goes up and down each row one at a time!"

"It's Brother Xavier tonight," Adrian realized, 'Natalie, tell the Father, it's Brother Xavier's cell. I'll try and stop Faracy."

"Right," she rushed towards the entrance. Adrian hustled up the cavern towards the monastery, weaving his way crazily around pools of oil on the floor. Sure enough, he could make out a figure standing by the grating farthest up the corridor on the right. "Faracy, hold it!" he cried out.

"Stay back, Monk!" the oil executive barked. Adrian heard a gun cocking. He slipped out of sight behind an outcropping. "It's over, Faracy, we know what you're up to," he called out, being sure to stay out of sight.

It's too late, Monk; he's got to be already dead by now," Faracy boasted, "Perhaps you'd like to meet my pet yourself?"

Before Adrian could answer, there came the crashing of wood from above; Brother Xavier's door had been broken in. "Quick, get it off him!" he heard Natalie cry out.

"Back!" Father Fitzwater roared. Adrian heard the thumping of his cane and an angry hissing that got substantially louder; the snake was coming back through the hole. "No, no, not at me!" Faracy shouted, "Hey Monk, say hello to MY little friend!"

Adrian seized up as a long shadow landed right next to him. He leaped backwards against the wall. "Not, not me!" he screeched at the viper, shining his flashlight directly at it. "Go, go on back to your boss!"

The snake, clearly enraged at having been beaten at in the cell, hissed loudly and kept coming. Adrian frantically seized loose rocks and flung it at him. All of them missed. He backed up as far against the wall as he could go. The viper's head raised upwards, ready to strike...

And then jerked about as no fewer than five bullets riddled it. It let out one final agonized hiss and went completely still. Adrian glanced up in surprise to see Christie step around the corner with his gun smoking. "You OK, Monk?" he asked breathlessly.

"I, I am now, Joe," Adrian inched along the wall to avoid touching the snake's body, "I think I...watch out!"

Christie was knocked to the ground as Faracy pushed him to the ground and dashed for the cave entrance. Adrian leaped out of the alcove and gave pursuit. He needn't have bothered, however, for no sooner did Faracy exit the cave than he was blindsided by an elderly blur and knocked hard to the ground. "What the hell!?" the oil executive groaned in agony, clutching his ribs.

"Father?" Adrian was amazed as a winded Father Fitzwater planted both a foot and his cane on Faracy's chest to hold him down.

"Oh, I knew I still had the old sprint left in there somewhere," the priest smiled. He turned to see Natalie coming back over from the monastery. "He is all right then?" he inquired.

"Yes, he wasn't bitten," she said in relief, "In fact he slept through the whole thing."

"Dear Xavier, always devoted to the routine," Father Fitzwater chuckled. He helped heft Faracy up so Christie could cuff him. "You, sir, should consider trying the life of a monk," he told the killer firmly, "And where you're going now, at least you'll have all the time to consider it."

"My lawyer's going to have a field day with you people!" Faracy snarled, "If you think...!!"

"Oh just shut up Fred! It's over!" his wife barked from over by the cave entrance, "You pushed it too far this time, and I'm not helping you out of this one!"

"You better not have breathed anything to them, Lisa!" he snapped at her.

"No, she didn't, but we already figured the whole thing out," Adrian told him, "Here's what happened; unable to find new substantial oil deposits overseas, you were out boating on the bay trying to plan out your next move, and turned on your sonar oil finder I saw in your sub in the lagoon."

"You barely had five seconds to look in there," Natalie was amazed.

"Like, like I said, it's, it's a blessing, and a curse," Adrian said. He turned back to Faracy and continued, "You were amazed when it showed that there was a tremendous deposit underneath this island. So big, in fact, that you got greedy and decided you wouldn't tell Omnipresent about it; you would excavate it yourself and sell it on the black market for a fortune. So you told Omnipresent you'd be on vacation for a while, then approached the diocese about selling you the island. But the archbishop turned you down flat no matter how much you offered him for it. So you decided the best approach would be to kill off every monk on the island, then buy it dirt cheap once the diocese sold it off. You cased the island and took note that Charles Schickram was a dead ringer for you. So you waited until he went out for the weekly food, then you grabbed him outside the market, got all the relevant information about himself out of him, then killed him and took his place. You convinced your wife that she'd reap a fortune by helping you out, so you and her took that sub from Omnipresent's fleet and drilled out the oil every night."

"And believe me, it was the stupidest thing I ever did in my life!" Mrs. Faracy griped, "If you had to spend ten hours a night in a dirty tunnel drilling for filthy crude with equipment that breaks down every ten minutes, you'd be on the verge of insanity too!"

"But then why would he bother telling you that Mitch killed Trudy, Mr. Monk?" Natalie interrupted, "I still don't get how that ties in with everything."

"Quite simple really, Natalie, it's same thing we've put up with the last couple of weeks," Adrian advanced towards Faracy, "Fred here is one of my biggest fans. He watches the show every week, don't you Fred? And you couldn't stand the thought of anyone replacing Sharona. So you were conspiring to find some way to make me get rid of Natalie so I'd bring her back. When you were pressing Schickram for important information, he must have blurted out that he'd hated Mitch and had tried to set him up. And you realized you had a golden opportunity in the palm of your hands. So you thought up the most horrible thing imaginable to pin on him, and that was the murder of my wife...although I see you'd thought out other ways too," he held up the paper that had blown into his face. "How the hell's you get your hands on that!?" Faracy demanded.

"We're weighing several possibilities, Fred," Adrian straightened out the paper further and read some of the things on it that had lines drawn through them, "'Mitch has ties to bin Laden,' 'Mitch strafed innocent civilians in Kosovo,' 'Mitch was a serial killer with twenty-seven victims before he died.' I do have to commend you on original planning, Fred, I don't think any of the extremists I've met so far have thought that deeply."

"It was all for a good cause, Monk," Faracy said unapologetically, "I thought you'd be more grateful that I was willing to try."

"Mitch is the man I love more than my own life!" Natalie thundered at him, thoroughly enraged, "When you attack him, you attack me!"

"Hey you want to know something, lady, you're NOTHING!!" Faracy spat back at her, "You're nobody, you understand, nobody! And if you ever thought you would be anything compared to Sharona Fleming, you're stupid too! Monk here is better off without you and your...!"

Without even realizing it, Adrian slugged Faracy hard across the face. "In fact, Natalie's made my life better than I could have ever hoped it would be again!" he found himself barking, "So just shut up, Fred, you haven't changed anything! It's over, I've moved on, and I'm happy for it!"

"That's why you're stupid too!" he ranted, clutching his nose.

"Oh will you just drop it for once!" his wife shouted at him. "Honestly, I got over the nurse going right away," she confessed to everyone, "It's been a nightmare listening to him go on and on about how she needs to come back no matter what, I can't stand him anymore!"

"Good, because I can't stand you either!" barked back, "All you've done since I brought you in on this is complain, complain, complain!!"

"When you act so controllingly and treat me like a servant, why shouldn't I!" Mrs. Faracy retorted. "You want to know how he made it look like I shot him, Monk?" she told the detective with a wry expression, "He rigged up a set of exploding packets on his back filled with fake blood; he gave me the time to drive by, and I set off a buzzer you'll find in that sub that electronically detonated them."

"You...!!" Faracy lunged forward and had to be restrained by Christie.

"Sorry Fred, but I'm not spending thirty years in a filthy jail when the whole thing was your damn idea!" she bellowed at him.

"OK you two, why don't we go take this inside somewhere," Christie took them by the shoulders and led them off--still screaming vile things at each other--towards the ferry, "Clearly the two of you have a load to work on."

* * *

"And I'd like to thank you all for being patient with me during my time here," Adrian told the surviving monks some time later in front of the monastery's door, "And for being patient while I cleaned out your cells one last time, and then the chapel and the dining room and...well, you get the idea. I, I just have one last request; say a prayer for my wife tonight, if that's OK. I want her to know everything's OK down here again."

The monks nodded, some of them looking touched by the detective's emotional plea for Trudy. Adrian dared to shake all their hands and waved for Natalie to hand over several wipes at once. He walked over to Father Fitzwater. "Thank, thank you for everything, Father," he told the vicar with a smile, "May, maybe I'll give your God more of a chance from here on; like I said, with no other reason for it,maybe it was him who brought that evidence to us."

"Remember, he's always watching you, Mr. Monk," Father Fitzwater smiled knowingly, "And he's there to listen if you need advice. And if you need any worldly advice, feel free to call me at any time."

The ferry pilot honked his horn impatiently. "Better get going, then," the detective said, managing one last wave goodbye to the priest. He and Natalie hustled towards the dock and got onboard. "I'm, I'm glad this case is over with now," he remarked as they pulled back out into the bay.

"First thing we do when we get back is call up the base and set everything straight with Mitch once and for all," Natalie declared, "At least that part of his record will be clear now. So now we'll..."

She noticed her employer looked rather glum. "What?" she asked.

"Oh, it's just...you know, Natalie, I'm, I am glad Mitch didn't kill Trudy, but, part of me...I just would have like to have gotten another break back there," Adrian admitted, "It, it felt like I was so close to some kind of resolution, and then to have it evaporate again..."

"Mr. Monk, you know you'll find the answer some day," she told him sympathetically, putting her hand on top of his, "No point in obsessing over what doesn't happen in life. Whatever God does have in store, he'll bring to you when it's time."

"Which, which brings me to another point; you do promise you're not going to invoke God every single time we're together," Adrian posed to her, "I'm, I am giving him a chance like I told the Father, but I'd rather do it on my own terms, agreed?"

"Fair enough," Natalie nodded.

"And no more drawing any weapons of any kind on me or anyone who says anything about Mitch?"

"Trust me, Mr. Monk, I've vowed to be more open to a clearer image of him," she swore, "I guess it took something like that to make me realize I still need to let go of him some more."

She glanced towards the bow and brightened. "Oh look," she pointed. A familiar figure was waiting for them at the ferry launch. "Hey Monk, Natalie, I got word the two of you were here," Captain Stottlemeyer greeted them cordially as the ferry touched back on the mainland and the ramp slid down.

"How, how did the ceremony go, Captain?" Adrian asked him, eagerly stepping back onto dry land, relieved he probably wouldn't have to make the arduous trek across the bay again.

"Couldn't have been better," Stottlemeyer said proudly, "The governor's still especially proud we saved his life, so he saved some special words for us. How about you two? Joe mentioned something about a bust here. Anything exciting?"

"Uh, no, not, not really anything that interesting," Adrian exchanged a knowing wink with Natalie, "Rather boring case actually, very routine. Nothing really important about it."

* * *

On the other side of the island at that moment, an anguished Brother Rufus was rowing away from the island in a small rowboat. He was dialing a cell phone in his hands, his fingers shaking as he pressed each number. There were four rings before the other end picked up. "Who is it!?" snapped the voice on the other end.

"It's me, _Judge_," Brother Rufus told him with a visible amount of contempt in his voice.

"So you've finally broken your code of silence, Rufus? Not that much commitment on your part."

"It's all over," Brother Rufus stopped the boat in the middle of the bay and hefted the anchor--no longer attached to its chain--in his free hand, "I've seen Adrian Monk, and no amount of words can describe how sorry I feel for what we did to him when we blew up his wife."

"I'm warning you, Rufus!" the voice bellowed angrily, "If I find you've breathed ANYTHING to Monk, not just you but everyone you've ever cared for is dead!"

"That won't make any difference, _Judge_, because I'm a dead man now anyway," Brother Rufus walked towards the stern, anchor in hand, "No amount of penitance I've done or can ever do will make up for what we did to him, so I'm ending it now. But I want you to know before I go that Monk'll find you out in time. I've stashed enough evidence I've got in a safe place, and it's only a matter of time before he finds it and brings you down harder than you can imagine. Oh yes, soon enough you're going to realize that God does exist after all, and the punishment he's got waiting for you is named Adrian Monk."

"RUFUS!!" roared the voice, but the monk was no longer listening as he dove overboard with the anchor in his hands, his body quickly sinking forever to the bottom of the bay.

THE END (??)


End file.
